


Whiteout

by SinceWhenDoYouCallMe_John



Category: Sherlock (TV), The Horn (2016 Docu-series)
Genre: Accident-caused death, Depictions of serious injuries, Documentary format, Documentary style, Everyone speaks multiple languages but please forgive me that all the dialogue is still in English, Greg Lestrade is a helicopter pilot, Happy Ending, John Watson is a paramedic, M/M, Matterhorn aerial rescue, Mentions of Death, Sherlock Holmes is a mountain rescue expert, The Matterhorn, This is pure silly fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-11 16:39:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 37,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15319737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SinceWhenDoYouCallMe_John/pseuds/SinceWhenDoYouCallMe_John
Summary: A documentary crew follows the Matterhorn aerial rescue team from Air Zermatt, profiling the mechanics, pilots, and paramedics as they save patients on the infamous mountain.Their camera may catch more than they're looking for, however, when it comes to a certain paramedic named John Watson. . .





	1. The Rescue

**Author's Note:**

> Ok ok ok, hear me out. I sat down yesterday and randomly started to watch this documentary series on Netflix called "The Horn" and LITTLE DID I KNOW that my life was about to be changed.
> 
> Cue 6 hour binge-watch later and I could not stop thinking about a Johnlock crossover. If you follow me on twitter, you understand the extent to which my sudden obsession grew.
> 
> Add that to my partner being out of town for the weekend, having too much time on my hands, and needing a brief break from writing chapter 10 of priestlock, and you have the following ridiculous, not-meant-to-be-taken-seriously, pure fun ficlet that is really just my excuse to imagine John Watson (but, really, Martin Freeman if we're honest) being lowered from a helicopter by a winch over the Alps.
> 
> I'm keeping this fic short and sweet since it's just a writing distraction for me now, but I had so much fun writing it that I'm not discounting future additions to the series. . .
> 
> All errors are my own, apologies that I didn't translate all the languages, and all the side characters are real people from the show (I take no prisoners).
> 
> Enjoy :)

The camera fades in to a wall of blinding, pure white, tinged with blue.

Suddenly, a boot in crampons emerges forward to press against a solid wall of ice. Deep, controlled breathing echoes in the camera, and the go-pro swoops quickly side to side before looking down at a body strapped with a harness to a rope belay.

We realize that the person is within a huge crack in the ice, slowly, carefully, stepping against the ice wall to move farther down into the crevasse. The go-pro is strapped to their helmet, our only view into the emerging scene.

Up above, back on the surface of the glacier, a dog frantically barks. We hear parts of the perilous ice crumble and fall as the man moves.

Voice, through a radio: “The dog just alerted. Any sighting?”

The man’s voice, breathing hard: “A trail of blood, yes. No sighting yet on the patient, but I know he’s down this way. Lower me down deeper. Fifteen more metres.”

The radio: “You’re already at the depth threshold for just two spotters. Wait until Gerold arrives with his backup to go deeper. He’s two minutes out.”

A sudden, wrenching moan echoes from beneath the man in the crevasse.

The man grasps the rope: “Patient is alive! I’ve got audio. Patient is alive. Give me the fifteen.”

Voice over the radio, reluctantly: “Copy. Lowering.”

The man on the belay starts descending farther into the crevasse. The camera searches desperately for a hint of the moaning man, peering down deeper into the shadowy ice.

Then, after a few silent seconds, the go-pro catches sight of an ungloved, bloodied hand peeking out of the deepest crack.

Rescuer, in German: “Hello? Hello, I’m here to help you.”

The hand twitches, and another guttural, screaming moan echoes from the ice.

Rescuer: “I am here to help you. My name is Sherlock Holmes. Do not move. I am here to help –”

A voice, from up above, suddenly shouts: “Sherlock!”

The rescuer, Holmes, sucks in a breath and quickly looks up. Barely visible through the crack thirty meters above his head, a sliver of sky can be seen, with another man being lowered from a hovering helicopter on a winch, swaying dramatically in the fierce winds.

Holmes, whispering: “John. . .”

The man on the winch screams while looking down into the crevasse: “Sherlock, wait until I touch down! Don’t fucking go deeper until I’m there!”

Below him, the other man continues to moan.

The go-pro gazes up at the man being lowered through the sky for one more moment, then looks back down at the patient’s bloody hand emerging from the ice. Sherlock moves deeper into the crack, using his ice pick to clear away loose snow until he can reach for the patient’s hand.

Holmes, again in German: “Stay calm. I will help you. I will hel—”

Suddenly, a piercing crack rips through the ice, and Sherlock grunts as he falls, tumbling deeper into the crevasse and buried by a massive wall of ice and snow. The rumble of ice is deafening for three full seconds.

When the avalanche stops moving, the go-pro is completely buried in snow. All we can see is grey and white. Sherlock gasps for breath, struggling to move.

Distantly, up above through the meters-thick ice, a single voice can be heard echoing down into the caved-in crevasse.

It is the voice from the man who had been lowered from the helicopter before.

The voice screams: “Sherlock!”

Holmes, faintly, just before the go-pro cuts out: “John. . .”

 

\--

 

A bright red helicopter bursts into view from a wall of fog and cloud. The camera tracks it as it soars majestically through the sky, revealing a full view of the glittering Matterhorn peak just behind the tail.

The title card appears as the violins swell: “The Horn.”

Helicopter blades echo, mixed with a blaring siren.

It fades to black.

 

\--

Text on the screen fades in: Three days earlier.

Interviewer, off-screen, with a feminine voice in a crisp German accent: “So, tell us, what is your favorite thing about this job?”

The camera focuses on a pair of tan hands tracing the smooth edges of a thick carabiner.

A voice, off screen: “Um. . . Well, actually, I don’t think I’ve ever been asked that before. Not in fifteen years.”

Interview: “You’ve worked for Air Zermatt for fifteen years?”

The fingers holding the carabiner twitch: “Be sixteen next week, I believe.”

Interviewer, chuckling: “That’s a lot of collective time spent up in helicopters, isn’t it?”

A raspy, off-screen laugh: “That, and even more time spent arse-deep in snow, if you added it all up.”

Interviewer: “And you’ve worked as a Paramedic that whole time?”

We slowly pan up from the hands to reveal a bright orange zip-up uniform with a Caduceus patch sewn on.

Voice: “Yeah.” The arms shrug. “Most of the guys I started with have all up and passed me training to fly, and they’re all decades younger, but. . . this is right for me. Where I’m at now.”

Slowly coming into focus as the camera pans, the face of a man looking off into the distance through the sunny hangar. He’s in his late forties, with a salt and pepper stubble beard, combed back silver hair, and deep blue eyes, surrounded by wrinkles from squinting over the snow. He licks his lips, and there’s a secret smile on his face. The sewn-on name patch reads “J. Watson.”

Watson: “Your first question, though. Fuck if I can give a single answer to that. I mean, I’m in the most gorgeous place on earth, with the very best team. Flying over the fucking Alps every day, right? Taking the training I’ve done my whole life to help people. I don’t call it saving lives, but . . . yeah. To help people. To do something about it.”

He pauses again, and his eyes light up as he glances at the interviewer. His gaze briefly lowers towards her body before quickly looking back up.

Watson: “You want my honest answer?”

Interviewer, warmly: “Of course, John.”

Watson: “Honestly, there’s something about the ice, you know? Being out there, on the most remote rescues, when you’re far away from the ski lifts. The ice is beautiful, endless. It blinds your eyes, burns your skin. It’s like a pearl on fire. And you’ve only got so much time to stand on it before it swallows you up – literally kills you with its own hands. And it’s a clock between who’s going to lose it all first, you or the patient. And that is the only reason why I’m here, doing what I do in this place: the patient.” 

Interviewer: “That’s all very poetic. You’ve given this some thought before?”

The camera cuts to a slow-motion clip of Watson looking out the window from the helicopter, slow violins in the background. The chopper sways dramatically in a sharp turn above the alps, and the white and blue of the Matterhorn peak reflects in Watson’s eyes through the window glass. He turns to the pilot next to him, Sam, and laughs as he responds to some words through his headset mic.

Watson’s voice, off-screen: “Those moments right before you touch down onto the ice, when the skies are clear, and you’re just waiting to burst into action. When you’re all silent in the helicopter. It gives you time to reflect, I guess, before you’re there on the side of the mountain, and you’re with the patient, and your mind is all focus, completely blank of anything else but the task at hand.”

The camera cuts back to Watson in the hangar. He runs a hand through his hair, and his eyes look a bit lost. In the background, a mechanic climbs up the side of one of the helicopters and starts doing repairs.

Interviewer: “And it’s true you were a doctor in the British Army before, yes? So you’ve seen some action there, to prepare you for these high stress moments?”

Watson blinks and shifts in his seat: “Right, er, yeah, but that was, God, so many years ago now –”

A sudden alarm blares, echoing through the hangar. Watson immediately bolts upright, drops the carabiner to the floor, and tosses the clip-on mic back towards the camera. The camera follows, running, as Watson jogs towards the supply room by the line of bright red helicopters. 

Watson: “What do we got?”

Greg, hefting his pack on over his unzipped uniform, replies in French: “Didn’t receive the details yet from the radio call. All I know is an accident near Rothorn.”

Watson frowns, and the camera zooms in as he kneels to quickly shove extra medical supplies into his pack. He, too, replies in French: “It’s been warm today on that side of the peak. If it’s near Rothorn, then it’s probably a crevasse, no? Someone fallen in?”

They run out to the helicopter waiting for them on the helipad. Dominic sprints from another wing of the hangar to join them, paramedic bag in hand. The engine roars to life as Greg leaps into the pilot’s seat and fires up the engine. A cloud of snow blurs the air, and the thwack of the chopper blades echo.

Dominic: “Let me guess, Watson’s already guessed it’s a crevasse, yeah?”

Greg laughs into his headset, and Watson shakes his head as the helicopter lifts into the air.

Greg, in English: “Wouldn’t be our Watson if he wasn’t ready for the end of the world at all times.”

Watson: “Yeah, yeah, everyone make fun of me the next time we have a Code Blue and all of you only remember how to treat a pinkie sprain. Cushy toddlers.”

Dominic leans forward from the back: “Ah, man, you’re just sad you don’t get to bicker around the whole mission with your fellow Brit. This mission is far too boring for him.”

Greg, switching between English and French: “Sad about that? Seems to me Watson should be jumping for joy.” He glances at Watson: “The way you and Holmes go at it, you’d think your families have been at war for generations.”

The camera catches an odd look on Watson’s face, visible behind his headset, before he reaches up to put his sunglasses on. Then, he smirks.

Watson: “Careful, Dom, or else you’ll end up on the short list of ‘people I love to bicker with’. Ask my old Army mates – that’s not a place you want to be”

Greg, slapping Watson’s knee: “Aw, Watson, you just don’t want to admit you prefer a Frenchman and a Swiss over your own countryman –"

A radio call suddenly comes in, cutting off the conversation. 

A scratchy voice, filled with static: “Viva Echo Sierra One Nine?”

Greg: “Echo Sierra One Nine Viva.”

Radio voice, in German: “Update for you on Rothorn. Female patient: eight years of age, possible broken femur with broken skin.”

Watson sighs and shakes his head out the window while Greg replies to the radio. Dominic reaches up from the back and claps Watson on the shoulder.

Dominic: “See, man? No crevasse. No Holmes. Quit worrying.”

Watson purses his lips: “Shouldn’t have an eight-year-old out in these conditions. . . Not with the weather changing like it has today.”

The camera view switches to an angle outside the helicopter, attached near the whirring blades. Wind blows fog and snow dramatically against the lens, and the visibility is almost too little to clearly see the outline of the peaks.

An off-screen voiceover, in French-accented English: “We are not supposed to wonder about what has happened, why the patients have gotten where they are.”

The camera pulls away from the helicopter as it flies off over the glaciers, reflecting the glinting ice. We cut to Greg Lestrade in a cozy house, bending over a kitchen table and cutting up fruit with a knife.

The voiceover continues: “That – to wonder – is not my job. We keep the mountain open, this place for people to come and experience the thrill, the nature, and if people come, some of them will need our help. It is just how it is.”

Four children, ages five to fourteen, flood into the room, followed by a woman with long brown hair, who puts her hand on the top of his back. She speaks something into his ear which makes him laugh, and they share a brief kiss while a kid steals a grape from the table.

Cut to Greg giving his interview from the pilot seat of a helicopter in the hangar: “My entire family, my father and grandfather, great grandfather, they were all mountain guides in the French alps. I have grown up with them – the mountains and the beauty of it. The adventure. But also . . . with the danger. The death. All of that, I have been exposed to. It is an accepted part of this world, and this job.”

Camera cuts back to the warm kitchen, where Greg sits down at the breakfast table with one kid on his lap. He’s dressed in half of his work uniform, the top of the red jumpsuit unzipped down to the waist.

Voiceover: “When it’s a child, though, of course it affects you. It is hard not to experience the emotions. To keep them away until the mission is over, and has succeeded. Until you have done your job.”

We cut back to the mission helicopter, with Greg in the pilot’s seat. Watson is beside him as co-pilot, commenting on the terrain and where they could land while he bends over to look out the window. Greg flashes him a quick nod. They are all business as the helicopter tilts to make a sharp turn, avoiding the cable wires of the ski lift. 

Greg’s voiceover: “We are all affected of course, and me even especially, since I have my own kids. Same as the other guys at the company with kids. But my job is not down there in the snow, trying to save them. My job is to transport the people who can – to fly the helicopter as quickly and safely as possible, and then, once I have dropped off the paramedics, it is out of my hands. Once I learned to do that, to understand my duty, it all became a lot easier. I focus on the flying, and I deliver the equipment and the crew. That is my best job.”

A woman’s voice, off-screen, as Greg prepares the chopper to land on a patch of open snow near a crowded ski lift: “I always feel better when I know Greg is on a mission with John – when their shifts align.”

The camera cuts to the woman from the kitchen, sitting staring out the window over the mountains and cradling a cup of tea. It is Molly, Greg’s wife. Kids can be heard laughing in the background.

Molly: “Most of those guys, they all grew up here near the mountains, in Zermatt or one of the other towns. They’ve seen the tragedies, some of their family or friends, and so they’ve got this respect for the mountain. And with John, from the military, he understands that risk as well.”

She sighs, then smiles as one of the kids in the background loudly laughs. But her face quickly falls.

Molly: “But for Greg, it’s always bloody hard when it’s a kid who’s hurt, you know? John is better about all that. I mean, he cares, of course he cares, but. . . he doesn’t have a family, I don’t think. Actually, I don’t know much about his life, to be honest, but, the men at work -- they are his family, from what I’ve seen all the years I’ve known him. It’s easier for him to hold it together, and I know Greg feeds from that energy when he’s waiting back in the helicopter. It helps him – John’s calm.”

Interviewer: “Is John the most competent paramedic on the team?”

She grins slyly: “They’re all competent, it’s sort of a requirement for the job. I think they would murder me if they found out I ranked them.” She sighs: “But, yeah, I always feel better when I know they’re working together.”

Cut back to the helicopter landing in a whirling cloud of snow. Watson leaps through the burst of white and runs towards a group of people kneeling in the snow in the distance. Dominic is on his heels, carrying the stretcher.

Watson, into his headset speaking to Greg: “We’ll be fifteen minutes to get her stable to move. Hang back on the lower slope and I’ll call you.”

Greg, pulling the chopper back up into the air with a wave: “D’accord.”

The camera follows Watson kneeling in the snow beside a young girl. He shifts his body to block her face from the wind blown up by the departing helicopter.

Watson, to the parents: “You all speak English?”

They shake their heads no. The mother is crying into her ski jacket.

The father holds back the little girl’s hair, and speaks in German: “She was skiing down the hill, and then the fog came in, we do not know –”

Watson cuts him off gently and speaks to the girl in German: “What is your name, little one?”

The girl, sniffling: “Freda.”

Watson smiles at her as Dominic reaches for the leg, twisted at a wrong angle in the blood-spattered snow.

Watson: “Hello, Freda, we’re just going to move away some of your snowpants so we can look at your leg, yeah? Can you point to where it hurts?”

The camera continues to follow Watson and Dominic treating the girl, cutting away some fabric of her pants to view the lower portion of the leg. It focuses on Watson’s face to cut away from the gore of the exposed bone, and we witness intense focus, with his blue eyes riveted calmly down at his moving hands. We see his lips moving, possibly speaking to Freda, and his eyes brighten when we hear her laugh in return.

We pan back to see Dominic helping Watson set the covered leg in a splint, then they move her from the stretcher into the warm bag for transport to the helicopter. The roar of the wind drowns out their voices as they work.

Voice-over, off-screen, one we recognize as the other head paramedic, Patrick: “It’s those first few moments when you are in the snow that are the most critical. If you hesitate, if you wait too long to stabilize the patient, to get them back in the helicopter, hypothermia can set in. Even with just a broken bone, it is a race against the clock. You are racing against death.”

We continue following the movement of Watson’s gloved hands as he assesses the broken bone, still speaking calmly to Freda. Dominic hovers over Watson’s shoulder, carefully watching.

The radio interrupts, blaring.

Greg’s voice, in French: “John, I’m losing visibility. If I don’t come get you now, I might not be able to again for longer than you’d want.”

Watson motions to Dominic to run back to the clear landing area to help Greg touch down.

Watson: “Copy, Greg. Come now.”

We watch Watson bend over to shield the girl from the snow kicked up by Greg landing, then he lifts the stretcher with Dominic, and they run her back to the waiting helicopter. Watson leaps inside just as the helicopter starts to take off again after securing the stretcher, then he lifts a hand to wave as Dominic runs back to stay with the family.

Greg, into his headset, speaking to Dom: “I’ll send Robbie to get you and the parents. Should be in twenty – they’re coming from Visp.”

Dominic’s voice: “Ah, sure, I’ll freeze my balls off in the storm you were so worried about. No problem.”

Greg laughs.

We cut to Watson in the back moving quickly as Freda’s eyes droop closed in the warm bag. He inserts an IV into the back of her hand and starts to administer pain meds, then reaches up and quickly wipes away one of the tears rolling down her cheek. 

The chopper suddenly lurches, and Watson grabs the metal side to steady himself.

Watson, in English, ostensibly so Freda cannot understand: “Fucking hell, Greg, trying to force her bone back outside her skin?”

We cut to Greg smirking in the pilot’s seat: “Afraid of a little turbulence? Surprising, that.”

We cut to a wide shot, tracking the helicopter as it soars down the face of the mountain towards the hospital in Visp, framed by the storming sun peeking through the grey clouds. Along the distant slopes, ski lifts and skiers travel across the mountain like tiny ants.

Interviewer, off-screen: “Do you see yourself as a hero?”

Cut to Watson, wiping a towel over his hands. It’s clear they have just come back from delivering Freda to the hospital, and a few specks of blood stain his uniform sleeve. His hair is damp with sweat from his helmet. In the background, in the hangar kitchen, Greg, Dom, and Gerold can be seen laughing while setting out plates for food.

Watson, speaking down to his hands: “No, no, I’ve never thought that.” His jaw tightens: “You know, what you saw here, today, that was a successful mission, right? Everything went smoothly. No mechanical problems, no failure to touchdown, the patient was ok and delivered to hospital, all of that.”

Interviewer, warmly: “I’m sensing a ‘but’.”

Watson smiles, then leans back against the wall and unzips the top of his uniform jumpsuit. His white shirt underneath is soaking wet, and he wipes a forearm once more across his brow

Watson: “You know, these other guys I work with, the ones who grew up here around the Alps . . . their whole families for generations have lived around the mountain. They grew up with the mountain guide rescue teams way back in the day, carrying the bodies down the mountain on foot. And then they saw the advent of the helicopters, looking up at the flash of red in the sky that meant a rescue. And they all thought, because they’ve told me, that those guys in the helicopter must be heroes. That they wanted to be them.”

The scene cuts to a dramatic, slow-motion view of a helicopter soaring across the peaks. Below it, swinging on a winch, can be seen the tiny speck of a rescuer with a patient on a stretcher, being pulled up through the sky, illuminated from behind by the rays of the late sun.

Back in the hangar, Watson sighs: “But you grow up, and you get here, and you realize it’s not being a hero at all. It’s just . . . it’s just a job. It’s an amazing job, and it helps people, but it’s just a duty. And there are some days when you finally touch down at the site, or you winch down to the snow, and the patient isn’t . . . isn’t there anymore to save. They’re gone. And you think, could we have flown faster? Should I have sprinted faster from the chopper? Should I have still tried CPR? All those doubts – what you could have done to save them. Those days . . . it doesn’t feel like being a hero, it feels like –”

Greg, in the background: “Watson, quit with the flirting and come and join us to eat!”

Watson flips him off around the corner, then shrugs apologetically to the camera.

Interviewer: “We spoke with Molly last week about your working relationship with Greg. You seem very close. Is he your favorite person here to work with?”

Watson, starting to clip off his mic: “We’re all a team here. None of this would work if we weren’t a close team.” He grins, but it doesn’t fully reach his eyes: “But, you know, I do love working with Greg. He’s the most competent pilot we have – he’s even surpassed Gerold, who trained him. We all agree. I trust him with my life.”

Watson hands over the mic and turns to go. The camera lets him. 

As he enters the kitchen, there is a bright smile across his face, and Sam slaps him on the back as Patrick gives him a warm nod.

Patrick: “I’ve heard from town that your young patient is out of the surgery. They said if you had not made the choice to stabilize the leg as you did that the break would have been much worse.”

Gerold speaks over a full mouth: “We’ll add it to the training, for Dom and the rest of the trainees. It was a great idea, that.”

Watson nods his thanks, then ruffles Dominic’s hair.

Watson, to Dom: “Speaking of trainees, how are the frozen balls, huh?”

We stay on Watson as he turns away from the rest of the laughing team to scoop himself some stew from the stove. There, where no one can see, the camera suddenly catches a look of sadness across his face. He stares down at his hands for a moment, and his shoulders hunch.

Then, he jumps, and his hand shoots to his uniform pocket. He pulls out a mobile, swiping open the screen. The camera stays still as Watson reads whatever message has just come through, and a warm smile suddenly glows across his face. He looks quickly over his shoulder, then types out a short message and slips the phone back into his pocket.

When he turns back to the table, his smile is genuine. He joins the conversation as Sam relays the results of their controlled avalanche survey that morning.

Interviewer, whispering off-camera as we watch the calm dinner scene: “It just occurred to me he did not really answer my question - who is his favorite to work with?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seriously. You need to watch this show. This ficlet doesn't even begin to do it justice. Seriously.
> 
> Love y'all <3


	2. The Clues

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can't stop, won't stop.
> 
> As you can see, I've updated the chapters of this fic to 5. It's all the same scenes I was planning before, but I think 5 flows much easier than 3. 
> 
> My sincere thanks to all of you angels who offered your language and translation services! We are so lucky in this fandom to have a community that stretches all over the world :) If I decide to come back in the future and create all the translations, instead of doing what I've been doing, I know I would be in good hands! Thank you again.
> 
> Remember to heed the tags, and enjoy pure Matterhorn fun :)

We fade in to a scene from the inside of a landing helicopter. The sounds are muted and muffled.

In slow motion, three paramedics in bright red jumpsuits pour from the open doors out into the sea of white snow, flanked in the distance by giant black crags of icy mountains. The chopper blades hum like a slow, thudding drone.

Watson, in voice-over: “You try not to have any sort of gut-feeling when you approach the patient.”

The paramedics continue running, and Greg lifts a hand to wave them off from the pilot’s seat.

Watson: “I mean, of course, you’re assessing from a medical perspective, going through triage and making your plan for stabilization and transport based on what you see. But, up here, on the Matterhorn, whether a patient is sitting upright and talking to you, or lying flat on their face in the snow, you have to treat the urgency the same. Their chances of survival could be exactly the same. So you have to try not to predict.”

The camera waits inside the helicopter as the paramedics sprint through the deep snow towards the distant speck of a person lying face down in the middle of the ice, all alone on the slope. Soon, they are briefly swallowed up by an incoming rush of fog.

The camera cuts to the helicopter slowly soaring back up into the sky.

Watson: “With this job, every day is the same, it goes the same way.”

We see the three paramedics sprinting to the person in the snow, wielding their bags and the yellow stretcher. The first paramedic to reach the patient drops to their knees and reaches towards the patient’s neck.

Watson: “And yet, every day, you show up to do the same thing you did the day before, but it’s never the same. Every single mission, every call, it’s never, ever the same.”

The paramedic on his knees pulls his hand back from the side of the patient’s neck. When he looks up, we see it’s Watson. He glances at his two teammates with a plain look on his face.

Nobody is moving quickly, and we suddenly understand. The patient is gone.

Cut to Greg back in the helicopter, hovering just above the accident site to wait.

Patrick’s voice, through the headset: “Greg, you have got a body bag in the helicopter, yeah?”

Greg slowly takes off his sunglasses and rubs a hand over his forehead: “Oui. . .”

We zoom in on his hand as it grips the pitch lever to slowly lower the chopper to land. He then reaches behind the pilot seat and pulls out a folded dark blue bag, which he hands to Patrick without a word after Patrick opens the door. They share a brief look, the last moment of which is caught by the camera, then Patrick is gone.

From a distance, we see the backs of Watson, Patrick, and Dom as they maneuver the body into the bag, four specks in the endless blanket of white snow. All we can hear is the whisper of the wind.

Greg, in his headset: “Should take a few pictures. It’s too late in the day for the police to get here. They’ll want photos of the scene.”

Watson’s voice: “Right, copy.”

Then, Greg, off-screen in French: “Surprisingly, these are the times when it is the hardest to wait back in the helicopter.”

We cut to him back at the hanger, sitting leaning over in the pilot’s seat.

Greg: “You would think it would be when the patient is on the brink of life, when there is a mad dash, and you know there is still work that can be done to save them. But those times, I know it is out of my hands. I am not the one who can save them, and I have already done my job. I have delivered the team.”

Back on the mountain, Watson and Patrick try not to stumble as they slowly haul the stretcher between them back to the open helicopter doors. The sky looks empty and grey.

Greg’s voice: “But when we are too late. . . that’s when I wonder. While I’m sitting there waiting for them to load the body into the back of the helicopter, you start to wonder. . .”

We watch from a camera in the ceiling of the helicopter as Watson and Patrick slowly push the stretcher carrying the zipped body bag into the back of the chopper. It is a scene we have seen multiple times before in the series, but every other time, the alive patient would be blinking up at the camera, or moving their lips to speak.

This time, we only see dark blue fabric and a heavy zipper.

Watson’s hand reaches out to pat the bag once before they climb in behind it.

Greg’s voice: “You wonder if you could have flown faster. If you could have gotten the team there quicker so they had a chance. I have not delivered the people who can help on time. And that is when it is the most hard.”

Cut briefly to Greg walking into his home back in Zermatt, reaching out to pat two of his kids and smiling at Molly across the room.

Greg: “Those are the days when it does not feel like a job you can leave at work.”

The camera stays on Greg smiling at his family for another moment as he drops his pack inside his front door and moves to unzip his coat, then fades to quick shots of Gerold, Sam, and Robbie similarly opening their doors at home to their waiting families. We stay on Robbie for an extra moment, as he bends down to untie his boots while his young son plays flying a toy helicopter through the air, making sound effects with his mouth.

Then, immediately, we cut to Watson, standing alone at the edge of the deserted helipad back at the base. We see his back from afar. It is clear he does not realize he is being watched.

Robbie’s voice, off-screen: “We all have different ways of decompressing after the hard days. The extra long shifts, or the days you lose a patient.”

Cut to Robbie again, picking up another toy helicopter to fly it around with his son sitting cross-legged on the floor. The little boy fakes a mid-air collision and laughs. Robbie smiles.

Robbie: “And then, there are the days you get a call – a colleague has crashed, or a mountain guide you know has died. Those are the days you absolutely cannot go home alone. Our guys who live alone? There’s just a few of them. But they’ll sleep at each other’s places on nights like that, when they happen. To look out for each other. You just have to allow yourself to rely on other people, on nights like that.”

Watson is still standing alone at the edge of the asphalt. He’s in normal jeans and a puffy grey jacket, looking out silently at the mountain in the early evening light. Everyone else has gone home for the day. 

We watch as he eventually pulls his mobile out of his pocket. He hits a single button and raises the phone to his ear, looking down at his feet. 

We wait.

Finally, he brings a hand up to his forehead and leaves a brief message. As he talks, he moves his hand to rub the back of his neck.

When he finishes, he stares down at the phone for a moment in his hand, then slips it back into his jeans pocket. He turns the opposite direction and walks away to the empty hangar without looking back again at the peak.

Once Watson leaves frame, the camera stays on the distant Matterhorn rising above the town, and a brief timelapse shows the last rays of sunshine dying on the mountain, then the emergence of a flurry of lights come on and flicker across the buildings of Zermatt.

Interviewer’s voice, from the other day: “What made you first want to move here to Zermatt?”

Cut to Watson sitting in the hangar. He briefly reaches up with one hand to adjust something beneath his collar. The camera catches a glimpse of metal – it appears to be the chain from a necklace. He lowers his hand, then gives a brief smile to the interviewer before looking off in the distance. He clears his throat.

Watson: “I, uh. . . Well, to tell you the truth, I moved here with someone, actually. Sixteen years ago, right before I applied for this job.”

Interviewer, teasing: “Did you now? With ‘someone’ who?”

Watson smirks, and gives an almost wink, before looking down at his hands.

Watson, quietly: “Just, someone.”

Interviewer, relenting: “Right, so you came here, and then?”

Watson licks his lips: “And then, I . . . I guess I never really left.”

Interviewer: “Why is that?”

Watson, giving a tight smile: “I guess it’s just a difficult place to leave.”

 

\--

 

A bright red helicopter bursts into view from a wall of fog and cloud. The camera tracks it as it soars majestically through the sky, revealing a full view of the glittering Matterhorn peak just behind the tail.

The title card appears as the violins swell: “The Horn.”

Helicopter blades echo, mixed with a blaring siren.

It fades to black.

 

\--

 

Text on the screen fades in: One day before the crevasse.

A quick montage flashes by, accompanied by fast techno music: mechanics at work on the helicopters in the hangar; each of the employees arriving for work to don their red uniform jumpsuits; Dom and Sam drinking last gulps of tea before jogging out to the waiting helicopter over the blaring alarm; one of the dispatchers confirming a patient’s injuries over the phone; Patrick setting up the materials for a CPR scenario for the trainees.

Interviewer, off-screen: “And what is it that you do for Air Zermatt?”

Camera cuts to a man striding down the main walkway into the hangar in slow motion. Dubstep music blares. He brushes fallen snow from one of the sleeves of his light grey suit jacket before adjusting his sunglasses on his nose. His leather messenger bag sways behind him as he walks, and a breeze blows styled dark brown curls back from his face.

A deep voice, off-screen: “I’m the person everyone calls in when they’re in need of extra help locating a lost patient. Which, in the case of even the smallest avalanche, is nearly always.”

The man flings open the hangar door and strides through the rows of helicopters. One of the younger mechanics looks up and stares before quickly turning back to his work. The man folds his sunglasses over the front of his white button-up shirt and sets his bag down on the large table in the center of the offices.

Gerold, already at the table, silently turns a map around for him to see clearly, and points to a location. They start to confer. 

Cut to the same man sitting straight up in a chair in front of a wall of maps. He is now dressed in the same red jumpsuit as the others, and the sewn-on patch reads “S. Holmes.”

Interviewer: “So, you are somewhat of a consultant, yes?”

Holmes, tilting his head: “That’s an overly-simplified way of putting what I do, yes.”

Interviewer: “And how long have you been working for Air Zermatt?”

Holmes closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, and we see one of his knees start to wildly bounce.

Holmes: “I do not work _for_ Air Zermatt, I work for myself, as I have always done. Plenty of other companies near every major mountain range in the world have called me for my services, and I always find the lost person they are searching for. Always.”

Interviewer, a bit dryly: “Dead or alive?”

Holmes: “Yes. Obviously. That comes with the territory in case you haven’t noticed. Didn’t you film them finding a body only yesterday?”

Interviewer: “Yes, we did.”

She clears her throat, and we can hear her shuffling once in her seat.

Interviewer: “Actually, Watson lead that mission. He was the one who found the body.”

Holmes’ knee stops bouncing, but his face remains the same. 

Holmes: “Well, considering there are only four main paramedics on staff, there was a twenty-five percent chance of Watson being the one to find the body. Why you’re revealing that information to me as if it’s some great secret is far beyond my realm of caring or understanding.”

Interviewer, clearing her throat: “Right, well, this work you do tracking down patients in avalanches, can you tell us a bit more about your process – ?”

Holmes: “Look, are we quite finished here? There’s to be a distress call coming in in approximately twenty-five seconds, one which they’ll want me for, and I’d prefer already to be on my way to the helicopter when it comes.”

He immediately clips off his microphone without waiting for an answer and hands it back to the crew. The interviewer also rises, flustered.

Interviewer: “But how can you know that a call is on its way --?”

Holmes, striding away already: “Because I always know.”

We watch him walk out towards the helipad through the open hangar doors. After a few seconds, he raises his right hand into the sky and points his finger. One second later, the alarm sounds.

Interviewer, gasping off-camera: “Unbelievable. . .”

The camera jogs out to the helipad to join the rapidly assembling crew. Greg pulls on his helmet and clips it beneath his chin as he leaps up into the pilot seat, then Patrick jumps into the co-pilot seat after tossing his bag in the back. 

Holmes is just stepping up into the back of the chopper when Watson comes sprinting out of the door to the hangar kitchen. Holmes starts quickly closing the helicopter door, but not before Watson shoves his foot inside and kicks it back open. He shuts the door behind him just in time for Greg to soar the helicopter up off the ground.

Cut to the interior of the helicopter as Greg navigates them through the pass behind Zermatt. All four men bounce dramatically in the rough air.

Holmes, to Watson: “Good Christ, now you’ve come to babysit us? Here I was thinking you trusted Gerold and Patrick, but no, you need to come along to make sure we don’t leave anyone for dead in the mountains.”

Greg, in French: “Eight fucking years and you still get me mixed up with Gerold. We look _nothing_ alike. . .”

Watson, shaking his head: “Don’t give him the satisfaction. He’s just trying to rile you up. And me.”

Holmes crosses his arms and huffs before turning away to look out the window.

Watson: “God, you’re such a baby. . .”

Holmes: “Well nobody asked you to come along. This isn’t even your assigned shift.”

Watson: “Fine. Sue me. File a workplace complaint with Gerold, who you’ve spent eight years calling ‘Greg’. See how seriously he treats it.”

Holmes rolls his eyes and huffs again, but the radio cuts in before anyone else can respond.

Voice: “Viva Echo Sierra One Nine?”

Greg, to his headset: “Echo Sierra One Nine Viva.”

Radio voice, in German: “Mission update for you: climber reported missing along the Simplon Pass late last night. Male, mid-twenties. Robbie took Dominic and Simon up early this morning to search for him, but the visibility was near-zero and they were unable to land or search.”

Holmes groans from the back: “How anyone ever expected _Simon_ to be able to find a lost climber, on anything less than a cloudless, sunny day. . .”

Watson shoves him hard in the arm: “Simon’s even more qualified than you at climbing rescues, and you know it. Now fucking shut it.”

Holmes: “Or what, you’ll kick me out of the helicopter?”

Watson: “I might.”

Holmes: “Fifteen years of working with me and this is going to be your last straw? Simon? Really?”

Patrick: “You call what the two of you do ‘working together’? I have seen rival male ibex get along better than the two of you.”

Holmes: “Oh, really? Name the exact location and time of these sightings.”

We suddenly cut to Patrick sitting in his interview chair.

Interviewer, off-screen: “So, Holmes and Watson?”

Patrick groans and leans forward to put his head in his hands.

We then cut rapidly to a series of reactions to the same question from the rest of the team. Dominic barks out a sarcastic laugh, Gerold shakes his head and curses under his breath, Sam looks straight at the camera and says, “just, no,” and Robbie gives a slow laugh while looking off into the distance before rubbing his hand over his eyes.

Cut back to Gerold sitting in a pilot seat in the hangar.

Gerold, speaking as company CEO: “Sherlock Holmes is . . . well, he is the best in the world at what he does.”

Cut briefly to a silent, slow motion shot of Holmes looking down out of a helicopter window, his eyes rapidly scanning the snow below, and his jaw set.

Gerold: “Of that fact, absolutely none of us, from me all the way to the newest trainee mechanic, have any doubt. There is a reason he has been able to contract himself out like he’s been doing for decades. Every rescue company knows he is the one to call. When you have an avalanche or a rescue in a crevasse. He is your man.”

He gets an odd smile on his face, then shakes his head. We can tell he is trying to find the right words.

Gerold, grinning: “But. . . man, he can be such a . . . yeah, such a pain in the ass. I would trust Sherlock Holmes to find any patient, in any conditions. I would trust him to lead any mission, make all the right decisions. I would trust him with finding my own life if I were lost out in the mountains. When he is on? When he is focused? You have never seen anything like it in your life. But having dinner with him? Please. You might have to shoot me first.”

Cut back to a wide shot of Greg flying the mission helicopter in a soaring arc above the peaks. Interior shot shows the four men still apparently bickering from their seats. We cannot hear them over the background music, but we watch for a moment as Holmes says something apparently rude before briefly removing his helmet to re-style his curls with his fingers. Watson then says something sharp in response, which causes Greg and Patrick to erupt with laughter.

For a moment, once Greg and Patrick are re-focused on the flight path, we think we see Holmes sitting close enough to Watson that their shoulders brush. It is only a moment, then they move apart.

Watson, in voice-over: “Sherlock Holmes?”

Interviewer: “Yes, you have an . . . odd working relationship with him, do you not?”

Cut to Watson back in the hangar. He’s holding a carabiner in his hands again, and we watch him fiddle with the unlocked clasp.

Watson: “I think you could say the same of anyone working with Sherlock Holmes.”

Interviewer, clarifying: “He can be difficult, from what we hear. Maybe, particularly with you.”

Watson, nodding down at the carabiner with a wry smile: “He can be difficult, yeah.”

Interviewer: “You’ve mentioned the importance of teamwork before in this job. Of trusting your team. Does working with Holmes ever detract from that?”

Watson’s hands suddenly stop fiddling with the carabiner. He pauses for a long moment, so long it seems like he has not heard the question. He licks his lips, then finally looks back up at the interviewer. He meets her gaze, just to the left of the camera.

Watson, quietly: “Sher – Holmes and I, I mean, yeah, we like to have a go at it. We’ve worked together so long, he knows what pushes my buttons, and I know what push his.”

Interviewer: “And how long have you worked together?”

Watson’s lips twitch: “Uh, fifteen years. Sixteen next w– er, yeah. Fifteen years, on and off, whenever we need to call him.” 

Interviewer, warmly: “So, you don’t mind the bickering? You’ve grown used to it?”

Watson: “You know, he’s . . . he’s a part of the team. He’s a part of my team. I’ve seen him do incredible things, just like I’ve seen all the other guys do. And he’s had my back.”

Cut back to Holmes and Watson in the back of the chopper on the mission. Holmes is focused looking out the window as Patrick helps Greg navigate the rough air through the pass. Everything out of the helicopter windows is socked in with thick snow and fog.

After a moment, Watson leans over in the backseat to say something and point, but Holmes immediately holds up a hand and shushes him, then pushes him back towards his side. 

We wait, expecting to see Watson retaliate in response.

Watson, off-screen: “But I . . . you know, no matter how much we all like to complain about him, I -- I guess I don’t mind working with him.”

The camera stays on Watson after Holmes pushes him back towards his seat. Instead of arguing, he looks out his own window, and his shoulders relax. Suddenly, hidden towards the glass, we think we see a warm, small smile on Watson’s face. He rubs a hand over his mouth as he looks down at the Alps.

Watson: “So, yeah. Sherlock Holmes? I guess I just like a bit of a challenge.”

Interviewer, chuckling: “It appears so.”

We continue to follow the helicopter crew in a music-backed montage as they soar through the grey skies, trying to search through the swirling clouds for the lost climber down in the pass. 

Perhaps surprisingly, perhaps not, once they are officially on the mission, no more bickering can be seen, and instead each man is intensely focused on the task at hand. We witness Greg calmly solve a brief mechanical problem when a few of the blades gather too much ice, without any nervous reactions from the rest of the team, then Patrick communicates back with the base that the visibility is too unsafe to land. Watson sits in the back and idly plays with the zipper of his paramedic bag, and Holmes looks intently out the window, seeming to mutter under his breath.

Eventually, Greg: “Holmes? You want to step out for a better visual before we go?”

The camera cuts to the harness and system of ropes by the door of the helicopter, and we realize we are to understand that Holmes would be strapped in so he could stand outside the door on the landing skids as the chopper hovers.

Holmes shakes his head and sighs as he leans back in his seat.

Holmes: “No use. The fog is too thick. I’ve seven current ideas of his exact GPS coordinates, but will need to come back when the weather is clear to confirm so we can touch down and search.”

Greg: “Copy.”

They swerve away from the pass in a dramatic turn, and the storming sun glints intensely off the metal sides of the helicopter..

Patrick, grinning: “Abandoning a mission so soon? That is not like you.”

Holmes, in German: “Blame the damn fog.”

Greg, in voice-over as the helicopter flies away into the distance: “It is never easy, that. Leaving behind a patient you know needs our help, because you cannot reach him.”

We slow-motion pan over the men’s faces in the chopper. They all look subdued as they gaze out their respective windows. No one is talking.

Greg’s voice: “We say we are here to help people. And when you cannot do that while still keeping your team safe. . . All my years of doing this and it never gets any easier. Flying away. There are no set limits out here. You wonder the entire flight back whether you should have flown one more kilometer. Whether you could have found them if only you’d tried harder to find a spot to land. . .”

Watson suddenly nods out his window, and the camera cuts to two skiers in the distance making a dramatic, black-diamond-level ski down a perilous slope. A mini-avalanche of loose snow follows their trails.

Watson, in his headset: “Looks like some potential clients, down on that slope at two o’clock.”

The other three men look at the skiers and chuckle, but no one really laughs.

Just then, the radio: “Viva Echo Sierra One Nine?”

Greg: “Echo Sierra One Nine Viva.”

Voice, in German: “Female, early fifties, at Solvay Hut, reports of frostbite in hands and feet. Can you reroute?”

Greg quickly looks to Patrick, who nods. We see Watson nodding from the back as well. Holmes does not respond, but keeps staring out the window.

Greg: “Copy, on the way to Solvay Hut now. Should be there in ten.”

Voice: “Copy. Danke.”

We cut away to a dramatic timelapse of the main Matterhorn peak throughout the day, watching waves of clouds pour in and over the icy slopes. A graphic appears, showing a typical climbing route up the peak, then it stops and places a flag marker showing Solvay Hut, the highest hut on the mountain at over 4,000 metres. 

Holmes, off-screen, as the camera cuts back to the helicopter hovering high above the steep slope of the mountain: “I’m not even sure what you want me to say. What an inane question.”

We watch Greg and Patrick conferring while they both stare down through the glass floor beneath the helicopter. We realize, as the camera pans down to a tiny wooden hut clinging to the edge of a mountain cliff, that there is no safe place for the helicopter to land. Outside the hut, on a rickety wooden ledge, a few people stand and raise their arms in the air.

Interviewer: “Well, just take us through how that mission went, at Solvay Hut.”

Cut to Holmes in the hangar. He looks to the left of the camera at the interviewer as if she has gone insane. His eyes gaze around the room in a wide sweep, as if searching for an escape. Finally, though, he begins speaking, slowly, as if to a child.

Holmes: “It was a perfectly ordinary mission. Mild frostbite. Normal weather. Nobody lost. Boring.”

We sweep back to the helicopter hovering over the mountainside. From the interior ceiling camera, we see Watson is strapping himself into the harness and ropes while Holmes sits close nearby. Unseen by Greg and Patrick in the front, Holmes is closely double-checking every one of Watson’s carabiners and knots. He silently touches each one with his fingers, then runs his hands once along the waist straps of the harness. He gives one good tug. When he looks back up at Watson, they share a small, silent nod. It is the quietest interaction we have seen from them all day.

It is unclear, from their reactions, if we have just witnessed the same way any routine safety check would have happened, with any other members of the team.

Holmes, off-screen: “Obviously, as anyone with two working eyeballs could see, it was necessary to use the winch, since Gerold didn’t have a flat space to land.”

Interviewer: “And is that common? To have to use that procedure?”

Holmes: “I don’t see why that could possibly be of interest to your average home viewers, but yes, it is not uncommon. Watson is at least somewhat competent at strapping himself up so he doesn’t drop out of the harness and become Patient #2.”

We watch Watson open the door to the hovering helicopter, then fearlessly, without hesitation, climb out onto one of the thin landing skids. It appears, from our angle, as if he is endless kilometers above the mountain’s surface plummeting below his feet.

Holmes checks the lock one last time on the carabiner through Watson’s belay loop, then grabs the main rope of the winch in his gloved hands. As he reaches for the rope, the tips of his fingers accidentally brush against Watson’s forearm through his uniform sleeve.

Greg, through the headset: “Ready when you are.”

Holmes: “He’s ready. And I’m ready to have the bloody backseat all to myself again once he’s gone – the way it was supposed to be this morning before he barged his way in to our mission.”

Watson, not rising to the bait: “Sod off.”

A frozen moment passes, then Watson gives a sharp nod. He steps backwards off the landing skid into thin air, then free falls for two seconds.

We watch as the winch catches and starts to lower him down to the slope, making him a tiny red speck outlined by the horizon of grey mountains. As he descends towards the earth, we watch him sway dramatically in the wind created by the chopper from Holmes’ point of view.

Holmes, off-screen: “There is nothing more boring than sitting there waiting for a winch to get you all the way to the ground. It is the most pointless waste of time. You have nothing to do.”

Holmes, in the helicopter, quickly gives Greg directions through his headset in French. He holds the main rope with his hand, keeping it steady as Watson flies over the earth beneath us.

Holmes: “One metre forward, Greg, ten to the left, six forward, five, four, three. . .”

Holmes, back in the Hanger: “If you had Watson here, though, he’d probably tell you something ridiculous about how beautiful it all is.” 

He raises his hands in a sweeping motion and does a ridiculous imitation of Watson’s voice: “You know, just being up in the clouds above the earth, like you’re flying like a little bird, and the world is your oyster, and your soul is at peace with the clouds. . .”

We cut to a go-pro on Watson’s head as he descends towards the earth.

For one moment, he looks back up towards the sky. We see the helicopter above outlined by a sky of swirling mist and grey. And then, Holmes, in drastic red standing out on the landing skid of the chopper, keeping his grip on Watson’s rope with his back plastered up against the helicopter’s metal side.

Watson begins to whisper something as he looks above his head, but he stops suddenly before we can make out the word he was starting to say. 

He instead turns to look back towards the oncoming ground. His breathing echoes in the mic. When his feet finally touch down, he grunts hard and falls to his knees. He brings one hand up to shield his face from the ice kicked up by the hovering blades, then uses the other to quickly unlock the carabiner from the winch.

Watson: “I have contact!”

We watch back from the helicopter as he lets go of the winch from the ground. It soars back up towards us as the helicopter lifts to fly away. Back on the slope of snow, Watson is just a red speck in a sea of white.

Holmes, in voice-over: “And he valiantly climbed his way up to the hut, and congratulated all the brave climbers, and rescued the woman with the black fingers, and brought her safely to hospital, blah blah blah.”

As Holmes speaks, we watch a quick montage of Watson making contact with the patient, quickly assessing her fingers before getting her outfitted in the harness and ropes. Greg flies the helicopter back over the hut site and deploys the winch. Holmes is still standing out on the landing skid to guide the rope as Watson hooks up both himself and the patient, then the camera pans back, in awe, as the two people are gracefully lifted into the air, soaring up through the clouds towards the steady beat of the helicopter blades.

Interviewer: “It is a maneuver that requires a lot of trust, does it not? Among the members of the team?”

We cut to Holmes in the hangar and wait for him to snap back at the question. But instead, shockingly, he sits there for a moment, seemingly deep in thought. Slowly, he raises one hand towards the white t-shirt beneath his unzipped uniform top, and he seems to stroke a finger over something hidden beneath the fabric over his chest.

Holmes, quietly: “Yes . . . yes it does. Require a lot of trust. You could not do any of the missions we do, even the most mundane operations, without total trust.”

Back in the helicopter, Watson continues to assess the woman’s ungloved frostbitten fingers, as well as her toes. He speaks quietly to the patient to keep her calm as they travel through a patch of rough air, and his fingers against the woman’s hands are soft and kind. As he works, Holmes simply sits back and casually watches over his shoulder.

Greg, looking back over his own shoulder as he flies: “Well, look at that, the two of you actually _can_ get along. And you even successfully paired on a winch rescue. Never thought I’d see the day.”

Patrick chuckles beside him.

Holmes: “Don’t get used to it. I’m simply keeping my mouth shut because we have company. It’s proper manners.”

Greg, imitating an English accent: “Proper manners my arse.”

A sudden cut to another timelapse shows the heavy sun setting behind the peaks. The lights of the ongoing ski lifts look like bursts of firework light traveling up and down the distant slopes.

We watch from inside the hangar as a helicopter safely lands out on the helipad against the backdrop of the glittering town. As Patrick, Greg, Watson, and Holmes all eventually climb out, we hear Gerold’s voice from an interview earlier that day.

Gerold: “You have to be like somewhat of a family here, in this job.”

Greg pats Patrick hard on the back, seemingly thanking him for his co-pilot job. They laugh together over a shared joke as they both begin to remove their helmets and gloves.

Behind them, Holmes and Watson walk in silence a few feet apart.

Gerold: “You spend all of your days needing to rely on each other, one-hundred percent. And the hours are long, and the days completely unpredictable. Sure, we get tired, we may fight, we may have a rough time.”

Greg and Patrick disappear into the kitchen, where we see the shadows of a few other team members in there already cooking an evening meal. 

Back on the asphalt, after an odd, quick glance at each other, Holmes walks towards the locker rooms, and Watson breaks off to go put away his pack and supplies.

Cut to Sam: “Gerold said we are all a family together? Aw, how romantic!”

He smirks and rubs a palm over his chin, looking off over the camera. Then he tilts his head.

Sam: “But yeah, I mean, the guy is right. We are all a family, however you want to look at it, in whatever way. You just have to be, in this place. So, yeah, we are family.”

He pauses, then dramatically grins: “Even old Holmes!”

As the end of episode music swells, violins over a soothing techno beat, we cut to see Holmes walking alone in slow-motion away from the hangar. He’s dressed back in his crisp grey suit jacket from earlier, and his freshly styled curls blow in the evening breeze.

But then, as the camera slowly pans away to move back to the starlit peak of the mountain, we see a sudden movement through a hangar window. The camera abruptly stops to focus on it so we can see.

It is Watson, cleaning the melted snow off his paramedic supplies in his hands with a towel.

And he is watching Holmes, staring at him through the window as he slowly walks away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies to those of you I have convinced to start watching this show. While I doubt any of you became quite as obsessed as I was / am, I understand the rabbit hole you may have fallen into. At least we're all in Horn Hell together.
> 
> For those of you interested in watching the show, but who cannot access it through Netflix, it is also available via RedBull TV. Literally no sign-up or anything required. If it's available in your country (fingers crossed!) you can find it [HERE.](https://www.redbull.tv/show/AP-1N849ESGS2111/the-horn/)
> 
> I was truly touched and blown away by all the kind comments on the first chapter! Here I was mainly just writing this for myself, and it was such a joy and treasure to have you all join in on the squee with me! All my thanks <3


	3. The Fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back to the Matterhorn!
> 
> A few quick things:  
> 1\. At this point, I've decided to still keep the dialogue like it is. Many thanks to those of you who have reached out with kind translation offers. If I decide to go back and translate, I will definitely reach out!  
> 2\. It has been brought to my attention that the team in The Horn is speaking the separate language of Swiss-German, not what I initially thought was German with a Swiss accent. For now, it still says 'German' throughout the fic, but I may go back and update this when I get a chance.  
> 3\. I did basic research on the medical stuff, but I'm sure there are still some errors to the trained eye. If there's something glaring, you can let me know in a private message.
> 
> I'm so thrilled by the amount of you who are enjoying this fic! It is a pure delight for me to write, and I'm excited as we near the conclusion! Remember, as always, this is just for fun :) Enjoy!

Immediately, we are dropped into the middle of a Code Blue.

Voices sound muffled and far away, everything eclipsed by the distant blaring of the alarm mixed with a medical-sounding beeping we can’t yet place.

We see a flurry of hands on someone’s torso, yanked open paramedic bags with supplies spilling out onto what we recognize is the painted asphalt of the helipad at the base. 

We cannot see the patient’s face.

Slowly, gradually, the camera zooms in one just one pair of hands, fiercely performing the chest compressions of CPR on top of the patient’s bare skin. Their clothes have been cut away.

Above the softly spoken instructions and the rustle of bags and supplies, the only thing we can hear is one person counting reps in a breathless, grunting voice.

We follow the hands doing CPR up the arms of the rescuer, and eventually reveal that it is John Watson, bent over on his knees and using the full force of his body as he thrusts. Multiple beads of thick sweat drip down his nose and forehead as he counts under his breath. Just behind him, Dom stares down at the patient’s off-screen chest with the most serious expression we have ever seen on his face. 

In the background, the foggy silhouettes of a pilot and co-pilot step down out of a helicopter. It is clear that the paramedics grabbed the patient from the chopper literally immediately upon arrival, without even time for the pilots to shut off the engines and step out themselves. They didn’t even carry the patient all the way in to the hangar.

Watson’s voice, off-screen: “There’s . . . well, there’s nothing really going through your mind in a moment like that.”

Watson continues to do intense CPR, and the camera slowly pans to the faces of the other paramedics huddled around the patient. There are at least six people, some we’ve never even seen yet before. All of them have a tool in hand to try and get a pulse back in the patient.

Everyone is utterly focused, but calm. There is not a single note of background music, only the collective deep breaths of the paramedics and the whispered counts.

Watson: “You have to make a decision in that moment to forget that it’s an actual person under your hands. You can’t think about the family, or the friends, or the fact that they were probably laughing and skiing an hour ago. You can’t think about their plane ticket back home – to wherever home is - from their vacation in Zermatt.”

Watson rips his hands back from the body as Patrick leans in with a defibrillator.

Patrick: “Clear!”

We hear the thud and beep of the machine, then a moment of silence.

Watson wipes the beads of sweat from his brow with his forearm, then shakes his head and takes a deep breath before throwing himself once more into the chest compressions.

Watson, in voice-over: “When you’re in a situation like that, something like a Code Blue, you just think about the ribs and the lungs. The oxygen in the bloodstream. The heartbeat. That’s all.”

Interviewer’s voice: “Have you ever had to perform CPR on someone who was not a stranger? Whom you knew?”

We sharply cut away from Watson kneeling on the asphalt and instead see him sitting with his elbows on his knees in the hangar. His hair is damp with sweat, and the top of his uniform jumpsuit is unzipped. It is clear he has recently finished performing the CPR, but whether or not the patient survived it completely unknown. We cannot see any clues in his expression.

Watson waits a long moment before answering, staring down at his hands. When he finally looks up, we hear the interviewer suck in a tiny breath. His eyes are wet.

Watson, in a controlled, soft voice: “Yes. Yes, I have.”

Interviewer, gently: “In the army? Fellow soldiers?”

Watson: “Yes, that. Of course, that. But, also . . . also once, not in the army.”

There is a thick, awkward silence. We sense that the interviewer is internally debating whether to ask the outcome of that other time.

Watson swallows hard. He can feel her hesitation. He sits up straighter in his chair.

Watson, brighter: “You know, I would do it again in a heartbeat, obviously. We’ve all gotten into some hairy situations, the nature of what we do. I’m pretty sure every one of us has had to do something medical, or some sort of rescue, for another member of the team. And, if it came to it, if I had to, I would do CPR for fucking hours straight – until my arms fell off - to help any of the guys here. But. . . Christ. . .”

For a piercing moment, his voice breaks. He stops and runs a hand over his eyes. When he eventually pulls his hand away, the wetness in his eyes from before is gone. His lips are more controlled.

Watson: “I mean, shit, I wish I never, ever have to do that again. Try and re-start a pulse in someone I . . . in someone who isn’t a stranger. Never again.”

Watson shakes his head for a moment, then crosses his arms businesslike over his chest. He clears his throat. 

Watson: “Anyway, to answer the unspoken question: yes. They lived.”

He gives a small grin, and we hear the interviewer breath out a relieved sigh.

Interviewer, a bit in awe: “You saved their life – the life of one of your friends.”

Suddenly, out of nowhere, an odd spasm moves across Watson’s face. He breathes harshly out his nose, and his hands clench into fists between his legs. His brief composure from before is gone.

Watson, distantly, as if nobody else is even in the room: “You know, I’ve never been able to see it like that. Not once. Everyone tells me I saved his life. I did CPR for thirty-seven minutes in the snow until help arrived, literally without stopping. It felt like thirty-seven hours. And . . . technically, yes, I saved his life. On paper. That, and, well, it’s honestly a miracle he recovered totally fine.”

Watson’s eyes seem to fog over. He feels very far away.

Watson: “But . . . now, when I remember it, it feels as if I only did more harm than good. As if I was . . . as if I was hitting the air away from his lungs. Keeping him from breathing in the snow. Like I was just hurting him that whole time we were out there alone.”

Watson blinks hard and looks up, startled, as if he had forgotten the camera was there.

Watson, strained: “Do you think I’m insane? I mean, we’re all a bit insane, to do this job, but. . .”

Interviewer, clearly moved: “You are not insane, John. Not at all.”

Watson, blinking rapidly as he nods: “Okay.”

Jarringly, we cut back to Watson still performing CPR on the patient back on the asphalt. The sweat continues to pour down his face and neck, and we can sense the other members of the team all flurrying around him to try and save the patient’s life. Their voices blend together in a hum, and we cannot even tell whose hand is whose.

Watson, panting: “I might need to . . .” 

He switches to German and looks at Patrick with large eyes: “I might need you to take over . . .”

Before he can finish his sentence, a new beeping sound suddenly bursts through the noise. Watson jumps, startled, and whips his hands away from doing their next compression on the patient’s chest.

Everyone freezes.

Then, through a purposefully un-focused camera lens, we see the blurry outline of the patient’s chest slowly rise, then fall on its own. It looks like a tiny spasm.

Patrick, earnestly: “I’ve got a pulse. There is a pulse.”

We expect the moment to be a sigh of relief, of everyone relaxing after hearing the news, but instead a new burst of focused activity occurs. We get lost in the shuffle as the entire team except Watson starts to re-strap and stabilize the patient on the stretcher, then lift them up in the air. Distantly, we hear the roar of the helicopter blades starting to thrum.

As the team comes alive getting the patient back to the helicopter, the camera stays on the left behind Watson as he sits back on his heels, chest heaving with his breaths. He puts his hands down on his knees and tries to breathe, then, ungracefully, falls down onto his back with his knees bent up on the asphalt, where he is now alone.

Interviewer, off-screen: “How often do you travel away from Zermatt, to help out with other rescues?”

Cut to Holmes back in the hangar. It feels like this interview is lightyears away from what just occurred on the tarmac. It’s unclear if this has taken place before or after the Code Blue. If it is even the same day.

Holmes: “I do not ‘ _help out_ ’ with other rescues. I perform one-hundred-percent effective recovery efforts, based solely on my independent knowledge and expertise.”

He shuts his eyes for a moment and takes a deep breath. He looks unbelievably annoyed. Then, suddenly, we hear a buzz, and his hand immediately goes to the pocket of his trousers. It appears he has just received a text. His fingers trace the outline of his mobile through the fabric. Somehow, without even pulling his phone out to read the text, his demeanor starts to relax.

Holmes, gentler: “But, yes, as you would imagine, I’m often called away, especially in the busiest ski seasons where the fellow adrenaline junkies all come out from hibernation. The mountain is a zoo.”

Interviewer: “And you travel all throughout the world, not just the Alps?”

Holmes, smirking: “Only to the locations that aren’t flat and snow-less. Obviously.”

Cut back to Watson still lying on his back on the asphalt. His chest is still heaving, and he rubs his palm up over his face. The sky above him looks endless – a clear and empty blue.

Interviewer: “Your situation is unique from the other team members here. Do you enjoy that, the constant travel?” Her voice sounds a bit skeptical: “Do you ever miss your home base here in Zermatt?”

Back on the asphalt, Greg walks into view and extends a quiet hand down to Watson. Watson looks up, shielding his eyes from the sun, then takes the offered hand. Greg pulls him up to a seated position, then leans down to give him a hard pat on the back.

Holmes’ voice: “Zermatt is a boring, lifeless, ridiculous little town, filled with nothing but photographers and tourists and children screaming that they’re too cold. There aren’t even normal _cars_ here.”

Watson looks up at Greg, and they share a silent communication. After Greg passes back into the hangar, the rest of the team who didn’t just go with the patient in the helicopter also walk by, each one silently patting Watson’s back or shoulder from where he sits. He waits until he’s alone again, aside from the camera, to unzip his uniform top to reveal his soaked undershirt. 

Briefly, he lifts a finger to touch the hint of metal chain peaking up above his collar. He stares off at the distant peak, and we cut to a zoomed-in shot of his face as the background music swells. His eyes are deep blue.

Holmes’, in voice-over: “But, to answer your unnecessary question. . . yes. Sometimes I do find myself missing it.”

Watson runs a hand through his hair, then sits with his arms around his knees. We have a feeling he is going to be sitting there for a long while.

Holmes’ voice: “Missing Zermatt.”

 

\--

 

A bright red helicopter bursts into view from a wall of fog and cloud. The camera tracks it as it soars majestically through the sky, revealing a full view of the glittering Matterhorn peak just behind the tail.

The title card appears as the violins swell: “The Horn.”

Helicopter blades echo, mixed with a blaring siren.

It fades to black.

 

\--

 

Interviewer: “How did the two of you meet?”

We fade in to Greg sitting on a slope of snow at the edge of the helipads. The red of his jumpsuit is brilliant against the faded grey and white of the distant peaks. He wraps his arms around his knees and speaks looking out in the distance.

Greg, in English: “You could spend an entire week with Molly and still never learn this, but she raced in Nagano in ’98. Came fifth place in the women’s Giant Slalom.”

He pauses and grins, then turns to the off-screen interviewer beside the camera.

Greg: “That’s fucking impressive, _non_?”

Interviewer, chuckling: “It really is. She did not mention that when we spoke with her.”

Greg, nodding: “Anyway, I was there with some friends for a vacation. Thought we would see Japan. And oh, yeah, this thing called the Winter Olympics was happening, we might as well stop by to check it out, you know? I met her in the crowd eight minutes after her final run down the mountain. I had fought my way up to the railing, you know, to the fence, so that I could see the athletes as they walked past. And she walked by, and I called out _félicitations_ on the fifth place. Except I said it all in French. And she didn’t hear a word I said, it was too quick for her to understand, but she looked at me, and she said, ‘Thank you! How old are you?’ Because, even then, my hair was a bit silver, right? And then she started apologizing, oh god, so sorry, I don’t know why I said that, my brain is all a fog, and I said I would tell her my age if she went with me to get the dinner nearby.”

He rubs at the wedding band on his ring finger with his thumb and smirks.

Greg: “And she has not been able to get rid of me since that dinner.”

Cut to Greg flying a helicopter, soaring it in a drastic, steep turn over the tops of the peaks. We watch him as he surveys the thick clouds of incoming turbulence and fog.

Interviewer, in voice-over: “Is it hard for her, for you both, that you do such a dangerous job?”

Greg’s voice: “Way I see it, I have just as much chance coming home with my arm in a sling as she does, working as a trainer on the mountain. Teaching the _petits Olympiens_ as I call them.”

We hear him sigh, and the camera cuts back to Greg sitting casually in the snow.

Greg: “But if we . . . if we worked this same job? If she had to watch me actually flying the chopper on the dangerous days? If I had to watch her set off on skies for some backcountry search? Watch her run away from the helicopter to go and find someone? _Merde_ , I could never do my job with focus. I would be worried all the time. She would be worried all the time. You cannot mix these two things in that way, I believe.”

Interviewer: “And was that an option for her? To work here at Air Zermatt?”

Greg: “We discussed it if she wanted to apply. By now, all these years later, she probably knows this mountain better than even I do.”

Cut to a couple of people skiing elegantly down a steep slope, weaving in and out of each other’s paths as their skis carve deep ruts into the fluffy snow like marble. The cloudless sky shines, and the sun glints off the edges of their skis. We realize by their glances at each other that we are watching Greg and Molly ski together on a day off.

Greg’s voice: “Tomorrow, if she wakes up, if she tells me she would like to work here as a searcher with Air Zermatt? I would tell her, do it. They need you. And then I would immediately quit.”

He laughs, and we cut back to him staring out at the peak from where he sits in the snow.

Interviewer: “That easily?”

Greg: “No, not easily at all. I mean, maybe I jest. Yes, of course I jest. But, you have to –"

He’s interrupted by the blare of the alarms behind us back in the hangar. Without finishing his sentence, Greg leaps to his feet, rips off the mic, and sprints back to the helipad. A mechanic runs out to meet him, holding out his bag and helmet. We run to keep up.

Simon also hurries out of the hangar, flinging his bag over his shoulder with his helmet in his hands. He carries huge coils of climbing rope over each shoulder. Jogging excitedly by his side, a dog in a bright red vest leaps up to try and bite one of the ropes.

Simon, in German: “Robbie’s team caught a visual near where the Simplon Pass climber was lost. Fresh crevasse almost exactly where he was last seen, before the fog rolled in. They already had two patients with them, so they couldn’t stop to check, but the weather is clear if we hurry.”

Greg, nodding down at the dog with his hands on his hips: “You are bringing Elsa? You have a good feeling on this?”

Simon silently gestures with his hand, and the dog immediately sits, waiting frozen and still.

Simon: “Nearly positive.”

The conversation ends as they prepare themselves with their gear. Just before Greg is about to step in the pilot’s seat, he looks back at the hangar with a confused frown on his face.

Greg: “Where is John? And isn’t Holmes still here?”

Simon, also frowning: “They both knew we would go out and re-search again today. I am not sure . . .”

As he speaks, Holmes suddenly bursts from one of the side hangar doors – one we’ve never seen anyone use before. He sprints towards us on his long legs, and we realize that his uniform top is almost entirely zipped down. His curls look disheveled – more out of place than we’ve ever seen them – and he tries to smooth them down with his hands as he runs. He wipes the back of his hand over his mouth just as Dom catches up to his side to hand him his rescue gear.

Dom gives him an odd look, and gestures with his head. Holmes looks down and realizes the zipper, then quickly tugs it back up.

Holmes, out of breath but trying to sound composed: “Apologies. I didn’t hear the alarm at first. I was organizing my spare ropes.”

Simon frowns and pauses from pulling his helmet over his head.

Simon: “I was just in the supplies room. . . I didn’t see –”

Holmes: “Well obviously you weren’t being observant enough. As usual. Probably too busy thinking about something idiotic like the next beanie you’re going to purchase, or how to teach Elsa to speak English.”

Simon: "You think I would teach my own dog English over German? Pompous a--"

Holmes: "Obviously, it's the universal language. Wouldn't want her to be kept out of international communications, would you?"

Before either Simon or Greg can argue back, Holmes strides towards the helicopter.

Holmes: “Well?”

Greg: “Where’s John? He should be with us. We need a medic.”

Greg and Simon climb into the pilot and co-pilot seats as Holmes huffs impatiently from the back. Elsa curls up by his feet.

Holmes: “How should I know? I’m not his keeper. He’s probably off chasing a butterfly somewhere. Writing a poem about it’s his divine purpose to comfort patients in need. Let’s go, before the weather changes.”

Greg: “We cannot leave without a paramedic. I will not take off until –”

Just then, Dominic bangs hard on the helicopter window. When Holmes opens the door, he yells inside over the roar of the blades.

Dom: “You do not have a paramedic with you!”

Holmes, reaching out to grab the collar of his uniform: “Well then, you’ll do.”

He yanks him inside and hands him the spare helmet.

Greg shakes his head and sighs, but starts to kick the helicopter into gear nevertheless. We feel the vibrations of the motor through the metal walls, and the earth suddenly drops from beneath our feet through the windows. We begin to ascend, and the atmosphere within the helicopter turns to sharp focus.

Just before the helicopter makes its first major turn away from the base, the interior helicopter camera catches Holmes suddenly look back and down out of his window. His face is nearly pressed to the glass, but we can follow his line of sight back to the hangar. Distantly, a tiny red speck of a person is standing in the middle of the asphalt looking straight up at the leaving chopper. 

We cannot tell who it is, but an odd look of regret passes across Holmes’ face, replaced by his usual indifference in the span of a blink. He turns back to sit straight in his seat. 

Greg: “I have a feeling we are going to wish we had John.”

Simon, nodding: “If we confirm the patient really is in the crevasse, or however we find him, we’ll need back-up anyways. Should call Gerold to bring another helicopter with Patrick and John to follow.”

Holmes, from the back: “Yes, let’s invite everyone, even Sam and Robbie. And we can all bring a plus-one to Simplon Pass and have a little reunion over the blood-soaked crevasse.”

Dominic elbows him hard in the arm as Simon curses under his breath.

Simon, in German: “ _Scheiße_ , I’m starting to think Watson has the right idea always arguing with your ass.“

Holmes: “Excellent. I’ll tell him you thought he had a good idea. It will be the perfect insult.”

Greg: “I am going to leap out of this helicopter if you do not shut it. Try and see how long you will survive if I abandon the controls. I have a parachute.”

We suddenly cut to a jarringly calm scene of Watson sitting at a small table on what looks like the patio of a quiet café. The background is filled with quaint, traditional buildings backed by a rising slope of fresh grass. A small breeze ruffles his short hair. One or two people can be heard speaking around us. He wears a soft knitted sweater, navy blue against the distant green.

Interviewer: “Have you always wanted to practice medicine?”

Watson gives a soft smile out at the quiet road. Tourists walking through town after a morning of skiing roam by in happy familial groups, arms loaded with coffee and shopping.

Watson: “Ever since I can remember.”

Interviewer: “What about the army?”

Watson’s jaw grows tight, but he shifts in his seat and relaxes.

Watson: “Started out as a way to pay for it all, honestly. I’m not from . . . well, my family didn’t have money. It wasn’t . . . well, you get what I mean. And once I got in, I . . .” He shrugs. “Well, I guess I just liked it, so I stayed. Not all of it, obviously. War is war. But, it worked for me. There was always something to do – a reason to be there.”

Interviewer: “It sounds similar to your job here, no? What is it that they say about the army – ninety-percent boredom and ten-percent action?”

Watson, chuckling: “I’d say here, during the peak season, it’s the other way around. Ninety-percent action. But, yeah, I get what you mean. I guess I know what I want, now, out of a job. It’s not for everyone, but. . . yeah, it works for me.”

He sighs, and we follow his gaze as it slowly scans the distant wall of rising peaks, shining blindingly in the bright sun.

Watson: “Christ, I’d die in an office. I’d go mad.”

We stay on Watson looking back down the small streets of Zermatt for another moment. It feels world’s away from the hum and energy of the base, the blaring of the alarm, the imagined image of Watson back at war.

Then, slowly, we fade back to the base. For a moment, all we see is the empty asphalt of the helipad.

Interviewer’s voice: “There is quite a low amount of turnover here, despite the demanding nature of the work. What about for you - will you stay a long time yet in this job, in Zermatt?”

Suddenly, Watson bursts out of the hangar and sprints to the helipad. His hair is uncharacteristically unkempt, and he is nearly completely out of breath. He stares up into the sky, and we follow his gaze. 

We realize he is staring at the helicopter from earlier – the one carrying Greg, Simon, Dom, and Holmes to investigate the crevasse at Simplon Pass. They have just taken off moments ago.

He gazes up at it, still breathing hard, then tears his eyes away and frantically looks around the base. He turns to the cameraman.

Watson: “Did you see them leave? Do you know who’s in there?”

When there is no response, Watson shakes his head and curses under his breath.

Watson: “Right, you’re ‘not there’, yeah. . .”

We follow him as he jogs back inside the hangar. He immediately finds Sam, up on a ladder inspecting part of one of the helicopters with the head mechanic.

Watson: “Was that Greg piloting? To head to the pass?”

Sam nods slowly, confused by Watson’s distress.

Sam: “Took Simon and Holmes with him. Dom jumped in too before they took off.”

He chuckles and shakes his head, turning back to the tools in his hands.

Sam: “Holmes and Simon in the same helicopter? I’m waiting for the emergency call that they’ve intentionally crashed.”

Watson turns away abruptly, shaking his head. He walks away from the camera, and we follow him, close on his heels.

Watson, under his breath: “God, I fucking told him to wait thirty fucking seconds so I could get dr—”

He suddenly catches sight of the following camera out of the corner of his eye and stops talking. He loudly clears his throat.

Sam, yelling from back in the hangar: “Watson, you look like you just got run over by a truck! Try some shampoo and a comb!”

Watson flips him off over his shoulder without looking back, then runs a hand through his hair. As we scan the skies once more, the helicopter is no longer visible at all beyond the peaks and clouds.

Cut back to Watson at the café. He twirls a set of keys in his hands, and we notice a motorbike parked off to the side behind him. He’s getting ready to leave, and subtly checks his watch.

Watson: “Shift starts soon, so, you know. . .”

He motions his head to his bike, and we slowly follow, scraping up from our chairs.

Watson, as we walk: “But as to your last question, I . . . I mean, yeah, this job is demanding. It’s hard as fuck some days. Takes it out of you. Even the stretches where you’re just waiting for a call to come in. Completely infuriating, even. But. . .”

He climbs onto the motorbike and holds his helmet in his hands. We pause, waiting for him to say what he has to say before he rides away. There is a soft tension to him, down in the small Zermatt streets, that we haven’t really seen in his movements back up at the base. His fingers twitch on the helmet. He somehow looks out of place.

Watson: “But, as long as this mountain is still here, people will need us. As long as I can hop up into a helicopter and carry a stretcher, I just . . . I couldn’t leave. I wouldn’t be able to, not without . . .” 

He trails off, then looks up at us and gives a soft grin, then a quick wink. He pulls his helmet over his head.

Watson, revving the engine: “Anyway, they’re all stuck with me, is the point of it. I couldn’t leave.”

The camera stays rooted to the pavement as he rides away, following him until he disappears around the street corner, until the hum of his motorbike fades into the bustling sounds of the town.

Cut to a timelapse of the mountain peak, swirling mists of storming clouds, and ant-like skiers down the slopes, like black beads rolling down through the slick snow and ice. The music swells.

Then, suddenly, we’re thrown underneath a helicopter, watching from a camera as the landing skids slowly lower to the ice in a blurring cloud of snow.

Greg’s voice, through the headset: “Clear to exit.”

Simon: “Door open.”

Dom: “Exiting now.”

Holmes: “Well get bloody on with it.”

We watch three sets of feet and four paws drop down into the snow, then multiple bags of supplies and coils of rope are unloaded from the back of the chopper. After a few seconds, hands reach down to grab the supplies, and they jog away from the whirring blades of the chopper, just as the landing skids prepare to rise.

Cut to Greg watching them run out onto the ice from the pilot’s seat.

Greg: “The ice is too thin here, I need to wait lower down.”

Simon’s voice: “We’ll call you if you need to radio Gerold with backup.”

Holmes’ voice: “Might as well just call him in now. I already know the climber’s in there.”

Simon, in German: “The crevasse is two hundred metres away, you cannot possibly –”

Holmes, in French: “Have I ever been wrong before? I _know_.”

Greg, in English: “Christ, the two of you. Copy.”

At the last moment, just before the helicopter takes off, we leap out of the open door and jog after Simon, Dominic, and Holmes trudging through the snow. We look back just in time to see Greg soaring back up into the air in a steep turn.

Dominic, with only his paramedic bag over his shoulder, speeds up ahead and starts to jog to the crevasse.

Simon turns back to us as we walk, already a bit out of breath from lugging the extra gear.

Simon: “Stay back from us on the crevasse, yeah? Be safe. Stand far back.”

Surprisingly, Holmes turns around and nods his agreement with Simon’s instructions. He doesn’t make a joke, or say anything to argue, and we continue on silently through the hissing wind and snow. 

When we finally approach the crevasse, Dom is waiting off to the side, and beckons for the camera to join him. He crosses his arms over his chest to wait, and we stay back and allow Simon and Holmes to cautiously approach the gaping edge. 

For long minutes, the fixed camera silently watches them pace the edges of the crevasse, getting down onto hands and knees, and following the invisible crack as it continues down deeper under the top layer of ice. They scan the entire area, working in sync, light on their feet. Simon quietly gestures for Elsa to run along the visible cracks of the crevasse, sniffing madly down into the snow as her tail wags, trying to pick up a human scent. Holmes obediently follows her lead.

Without speaking or looking at each other, it somehow still manages to look like the most successful teamwork we’ve yet seen from any two members of the team. Dominic doesn’t say a word. His eyes are fixed on the dog.

Interviewer, off-screen: “Are you often on the same missions as Sherlock Holmes?”

Simon’s voice: “Yes, actually.”

On the ice, Holmes suddenly points down into the crevasse. Ten feet ahead of him, Elsa sits and gives a single whine where the crack continues deeper under the thick layer of ice.

Holmes: “Blood.”

Dominic, calling out to them: “Visual on the patient? Sign of life?”

Holmes shakes his head no.

Simon immediately runs to his side then kneels to begin unpacking supplies from one of the bags. His hands are steady and quick, pulling out carabiners, poles, hooks, and rope. He silently hands Holmes the pieces, who takes them without looking, keeping his eyes down in the crack. 

The camera slowly approaches, following in Dominic’s footsteps on the treacherous ice.

Holmes, into his radio: “Greg, he’s here. Get Jo – Call Robbie to bring the others. Patrick and Watson. There’s a lot of blood.”

Greg’s voice through the radio: “Ah, God. _D’accord_.”

Simon, off-screen: “They call us only in the most extreme circumstances. If the patient is missing, or unreachable. If there has been an avalanche. So, yeah, unless Holmes is out of town, I work with him.”

Holmes starts setting himself up in a harness while Simon prepares the tripod over the crack. Dominic kneels in the snow to prepare and lay out his medical supplies near the edge. Elsa remains on her spot, keeping her nose glued to the frozen snow.

Interviewer: “And . . . how does that . . .?”

Simon, chuckling: “How does that work?”

Cut to Simon back at the base in the climbing supplies room. He is backed by a towering wall of endless coiled ropes. He leans casually against the wall and crosses his arms over his chest. He is, in fact, wearing a beanie.

Simon: “Our little . . . how you call it . . . rivalry?” He shrugs. “I do not know. We have a . . . we have a silent understanding that it’s good, also. That it works. It pushes me to be better. Him to be better. We both need the challenge.”

Interviewer, disbelieving: “It’s quite an extreme challenge.”

Simon, grinning: “Well, this is quite an extreme job.”

Cut back to Holmes teetering right on the edge of the massive crevasse. Behind him, the endless ice nearly blends in with the cloudy sky. The visibility is lessening, and the world seems to shrink down to the immediate site of the crevasse. Simon kneels by the tripod, holding a drill in his hands which will operate the lowering of the ropes. Dominic stands with a similar drill, one that we assume will hopefully be used for the patient’s rope.

Simon, to Holmes: “We follow the rules, yeah? Twenty metres only until we get the backup team here.”

Holmes rolls his eyes and grips the rope with his gloved hands.

Holmes: “We both know that rule is ridiculous. If you or I cannot handle a deeper rescue, who in the world –”

Simon, in German: “Say yes, or you stay here on the edge. I will not lower.”

We wait a breathless moment while Holmes looks down beneath his feet into the crevasse.

Holmes: “You and I both know he is deeper than twenty metres, if he’s in there.”

To our surprise, Simon nods.

Simon, seriously: “I know. But, what can I say? They are coming.”

Dominic quietly speaks up from Simon’s side. We can barely hear him over the howling wind.

Dom: “Right, Holmes. Give the word.”

Holmes glances up quickly at the sky for a moment before looking back at Simon. He clenches his jaw.

Holmes: “Lower me.”

The camera immediately cuts to Holmes leaning against one of the helicopters on the helipad back at the base. He pulls something from his pocket, fiddling with it in his fingers, then peels off a nicotine patch, calmly rolls up his uniform sleeve, and slaps it to his forearm.

Holmes: “Closest thing I can get to a smoke break around here.” 

He casually stares out at the mountains with his hands in his pockets. 

Interviewer: “Where is the most interesting place you’ve traveled for a rescue? The most interesting mission?”

Holmes softly tilts his head, considering the question. His body language is as if the interviewer and camera aren’t even standing there beside him.

Finally, he sniffs and answers, with a wry smile in the corner of his mouth.

Holmes: “You’re asking me about this since I’ve been so tight-lipped to you about my history.”

Interviewer, clearly smirking: “Yes. You did not exactly answer any of our questions yesterday.”

Holmes leans his head back against the metal of the helicopter and takes a deep breath of the mountain air.

Holmes, not unkindly: “Well, since you’re being so insufferable about it, and since I expect you will not give up your efforts, I’ll answer a question from yesterday. I was dragged here on a ski trip with my parents when I was thirteen. Utterly miserable. Pointless and boring. My brother loved it.”

We suddenly cut back to the helipad, where Watson, Patrick, and Gerold are sprinting towards a waiting chopper. We realize that Greg’s call for back-up has just come through.

Holmes’ voice: “Of course, my brother, in all his wisdom, decided to break his wrist on the second day. Cue the helicopter, the stretcher, the red jumpsuits, all the dramatics.”

Inside the helicopter, Gerold is fiercely focused as they soar through the rough skies. Patrick quickly re-sorts supplies in his bag in his lap, and Watson stares out the window with his fist over his mouth from the co-pilot seat. He isn’t wearing sunglasses, and the corners of his eyes look strained. His chest is rapidly rising and falling beneath his uniform. 

Holmes: “His silly rescue was still the most interesting thing that had happened on that trip, so I tracked the rescuers back to their base in Zermatt when I came down from the mountain. Spent days sitting at the farthest edges of the helipad, just watching, until one day one of the mechanics must have taken pity on me and snuck me in to show me the helicopters up close.”

Interviewer, surprised: “He let you into the hangar?”

Holmes, dryly: “You could put it that way, yes.”

Interviewer: “So, you broke in.”

In the helicopter, Watson’s fingers stray beneath his collar, the now-familiar gesture that means he is surreptitiously touching the chain.

Holmes’ voice, humming: “You’re more astute than I thought.”

Interviewer: “So it was the helicopters that got you interested.”

Cut back to Holmes, outside on the helipad. He shoves his hands deeper into his pockets against a chill in the wind.

Holmes: “Hardly. I picked the lock into the supply room. It was the ropes that got my attention. Log books of climbing rescues left open on the tables. Detailed maps of the mountains and the snow.” He shrugs, anticlimactically. “It was interesting. I wanted to try it.”

Interviewer, warmly: “Wow, and now here you are.”

Holmes gives a soft, nearly invisible grin. We immediately cut away back to Watson in the helicopter. He peers down through the windows as they fly in a circle. The visibility is getting worse, and we can see Gerold shaking his head.

Holmes’ voice, off-screen: “Yes, here I am.”

Gerold: “I cannot land. I cannot see the ice clearly enough to land.”

Simon’s voice, in the headset: “Please, get us one of them if you can. This is not looking good, if the patient’s alive. We will need extra help, more than Dom. Sorry, Dom.”

Dom’s voice: “It’s true. Winch one of them down, if you can.”

Immediately, Watson sits up straight in the helicopter. He already starts to shift in place.

Watson: “I’ll go.”

Gerold: “You’re my co-pilot. I can’t have you –”

Patrick, from the back: “I’ll help you land once he’s down. John can go.”

Gerold is silent for a moment, then nods. Watson quickly unbuckles and climbs into the back, where he can start to strap in and prepare his harness. We can see from the odd shaking in his hands that he’s nervous. It’s a state we’ve never seen him in before, and it looks disconcerting.

Interviewer, off-screen: “Why were you so nervous? Back in the helicopter, before everything happened, you seemed to know something would go wrong.”

Cut quickly to Watson, back in the hangar, sitting with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. He glances up towards the interviewer, and his eyes look shockingly swollen and exhausted. The dark circles beneath them look deep purple against the rest of his skin. A small cut still bleeds on the side of his face.

Watson, roughly: “They . . . they tell you to learn your gut, in the army. To trust what you feel . . .”

He stops and takes a few long, deep breaths. His fingers shake, and he clenches one hand into a fist.

Watson: “I’ve only had a feeling as bad as that one other time in my life. And that was right before I had to . . . well, it was bad then. I don’t know. I just knew. I had that feeling. I had to get down on the ice.”

Cut back to Watson as he steps down onto the landing skids from the helicopter. Patrick reaches out and checks his main carabiner, but that’s all we see of their safety check. The two of them give a hard nod, and immediately Watson jumps back off the skids to start his fall. Patrick guides the rope with his gloved hand, giving instructions to Gerold. 

We’ve seen this maneuver before, and yet it somehow looks different now. Less majestic.

Interviewer: “Ah, so some of the mystery is revealed, now. One more piece of the puzzle of Sherlock Holmes.”

Holmes’ voice: “Yes, well I knew you’d never shut up about it unless I answered. It was a losing battle.”

Watson soars through the sky, and we watch him from Patrick’s side as he sways in the strong winds. Around him, the fog and mist swirl like a white cauldron of steam.

Interviewer, dryly: “Can we push our luck, then? Will you tell us the most interesting mission?”

We suddenly hear Watson scream something down towards the crevasse in the ice.

Patrick, in his headset: “Watson? Watson, what is wrong? John?”

Cut back jarringly to Holmes, leaning calmly against the helicopter. The air is quiet and still. Slowly, subtly, his hand lifts to gently rub once over the center of his chest, stroking across his skin through his uniform.

Holmes’ voice, slowly: “Well, many, many years ago, before I came to Zermatt, I happened to work on the most extreme avalanche case I had ever seen, or have ever seen since. It was a full climbing team missing. Even the local military got involved in the rescue effort.”

Interviewer: "How was it interesting?

Holmes, smirking: "I had . . . a bit of a 'close call,' as they say." 

Cut back to Watson still being lowered on the winch. We hear Patrick’s controlled breathing as he guides him down towards the distant ice. Dominic lifts up a hand to wave. Elsa sees Watson in the air and barks once.

Suddenly, horrifyingly, we peer down as the entire crevasse collapses into a cloud of ice. Simon, Elsa, and Dominic are swallowed up by the fog of exploding snow. The crevasse disappears in the rubble. It has completely caved in.

We hear a distant scream, a single word we can’t quite make out.

Patrick: “Shit! It’s caved in, it’s caved in!”

Watson’s voice, screaming into his headset: “I have contact! I have fucking contact! Let me go!”

Immediately we watch the winch fly back up towards the helicopter. Far below us, Watson sprints as a red speck across the snow towards the caved in crevasse. As the snow clears, Simon and Dominic wildly gesture him over to help from where they stand at the new edge of the crevasse, filled with chunks of ice. Elsa runs in circles with her nose down at the pit of ice, barking wildly at the snow.

Again, we hear that same scream, echoing all the way back up to the helicopter. It is Watson’s voice.

Interviewer, off-screen: “Oh? And where was that?”

Holmes’ voice: “It was in the middle of the Hindu Kush mountains – in Afghanistan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been squeeing over all of your guesses in the comments as to what the hell is going on between Sherlock and John. I promise, answers are coming!
> 
> Your comments keep me grinning like a fool as I type this out during breaks at work. I'll try to catch up with replies - I appreciate what you all have to say so much!
> 
> Don't fall into any crevasses before I post the next chapter <3


	4. The Secret

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back!
> 
> Before we dive in, keep in mind that I’m not exactly losing sleep over trying to make this as realistic as possible. The rescue efforts and survival chances in this chapter are roughly based off scenarios in the show, but more crafted around plot and yummy emotional impact :)
> 
> Also, OOPS I FORGOT THE DOG. Way back in that opening scene in chapter 1, I mentioned a dog alerting in the snow. Last chapter, leading up to the crevasse, I completely forgot the poor little doggo :( Hazards of posting a WIP, I guess! I've gone back and added sweet avalanche rescue dog Elsa into the previous chapter. If you're just picking up here without a re-read of chapter 3 (understandable), she is Simon's trained avalanche rescue dog which the team uses.
> 
> That being said, enjoy!

Text fades in to a black screen: Previously on “The Horn”. . .

A montage of overlapping footage and voices, each evaporating ghostlike into the other in flowing succession:

Gerold, sliding open the main hangar door to reveal a row of gleaming helicopters: “Welcome to Air Zermatt!”

Different groups of the team flying in various helicopters over the glittering peaks; Watson being raised on the winch from Solvay Hut through the swirling skies with the frostbite patient in tow; various mechanics closely examining parts of the helicopter rotors and blades; quick shots of Greg, Robbie, Sam, and Gerold all coming home to their families, all arriving and donning their uniforms for work; Patrick overseeing a training session on the hangar floor with a CPR dummy; one lone helicopter soaring up into the storming sky from the helipad at the base.

Cut to the timelapse of the inside of the hangar on a busy peak-season day. The swarm of mechanics, pilots, and paramedics look like tiny ants, dwarfed by the giant gleaming pieces of metal drenched in red and white.

Greg’s voice: “My entire family, my father and grandfather, great grandfather, they were all mountain guides in the French alps. I have grown up with them – the mountains and the beauty of it. The adventure. But also . . . with the danger. The death. All of that, I have been exposed to. It is an accepted part of this world, and this job.”

Watson and Dominic rushing to the little girl, Freda, with her leg bent unnaturally in the snow, a swarm of anxious skiers at her back. 

Robbie looking over his shoulder as Patrick and Simon load a patient on a stretcher into the back of the helicopter. Simon pats the inside window when they’re ready for takeoff. 

Watson’s voice: “You have to make a decision to forget in that moment that it’s an actual person under your hands. . .”

The team huddled around the patient receiving CPR on the asphalt – this time the camera pans up to finally reveal their face, now that we know they lived thanks to Watson’s hands. It is the skier from South Africa – one whom we previously saw the team helicopter out after a concussion on the slopes.

Patrick’s voice: “It is those first few moments when you are in the snow that are the most critical. If you hesitate, if you wait too long to stabilize the patient, to get them back in the helicopter, hypothermia can set in. Even with just a broken bone, it is a race against the clock. You are racing against death.”

Holmes checking Watson’s harness get-up in the back of the helicopter; their silent nod.

Greg’s voice over a radio, in slight distress: “Gerold, go ahead and bring Patrick and John up here to the pass, if you can. Climber is definitely in the crevasse. Holmes and Simon got visual once Elsa alerted. There is a lot of blood, yeah?”

Watson looking down out of the helicopter window with his fist over his mouth, looking worried. Behind him, Patrick sorts through his supplies, exuding normalcy and calm.

Gerold’s voice, through the headset: “Right, copy that. On our way.”

Watson’s voice, as we watch Patrick lower him on the winch: “I mean, shit, I wish I never, ever have to do that again. Try and restart a pulse in someone I . . . in someone who isn’t a stranger. Never again.”

Cut to the bloodied hand reaching out from the depths of the ice, seen through the go-pro on Holmes’ helmet in the crevasse. The desperate moan.

Holmes’ voice, in German: “Stay calm. I will help you. I will hel—"

View from the helicopter as the crevasse suddenly caves in. The plume of white cloud temporarily swallowing Simon, Dom, the cameraman, and the dog. 

Patrick’s voice: “Shit! It’s caved in, it’s caved in!”

Cut back to Holmes’ view from the go-pro inside the crevasse. We hear his scared, shaking breathing echo against the caved-in ice. The grunt of his hard swallow.

Far below us, a pained wail.

Watson’s voice, as we stay on Holmes’ dire view of the crushing wall of ice: “You know, he’s . . . he’s a part of the team. He’s a part of my team. I’ve seen him do incredible things, just like I’ve seen all the other guys do. And he’s had my back. . .”

Gerold, sitting in the pilot helicopter seat back at the base, shaking his head: “I would trust Sherlock Holmes to find any patient, in any conditions. I would trust him to lead any mission, make all the right decisions. I would trust him with finding my own life if I were lost out in the mountains. When he is on? When he is focused? You have never seen anything like it in your life. . .”

Watson’s voice, screaming through the ice from above: “Sherlock!”

Slow motion footage of Holmes and Watson sitting in the back of the helicopter. For a split-second, blink and you miss it, their shoulders touch.

Greg’s voice through his headset: “I have a feeling we are going to wish we had John. . .”

Simon’s affirmative hum. Elsa’s soft bark from the back of the chopper.

Watson, off-screen, clearing his throat: “Yeah. . . Sherlock Holmes? I guess I just like a bit of a challenge.”

Echoes of Holmes’ breathing back inside the crevasse. The panic building up in his throat. A crushing wall of impenetrable snow sucking him deeper, captured by the blurry go-pro lens.

Holmes, trapped beneath the ice, in a pained whisper: “John. . .”

 

\--

A bright red helicopter bursts into view from a wall of fog and cloud. The camera tracks it as it soars majestically through the sky, revealing a full view of the glittering Matterhorn peak just behind the tail.

The title card appears as the violins swell: “The Horn.”

Helicopter blades echo, mixed with a blaring siren.

It fades to black.

\--

The scene slowly comes into focus on a stretch of empty road, flanked on either side by fields of green grass and delicate wildflowers. Beyond the greens, rolling hills stretch up, framed by the very distant peaks of the Alps like tiny specks of crumbling white.

Then: a motorbike.

It zooms past from behind us, barreling into view. The camera crystalizes into sharp focus as the rider smoothly guides the bike down the curving black asphalt of the road as it winds through the hills. We watch until it disappears, leaving the landscape empty once more.

Cut to Watson suddenly perched on top of one such hill. His leather riding jacket is zipped open to reveal an old Army basic training t-shirt with a small rip by the neck. His helmet and folded-up gloves are beside him in the grass. 

As we follow his line of sight, we realize we are surrounded by the rural stretches at the outer edges of the town. Distantly, cupped by the hills, the ski resorts and hotels of Zermatt are clustered in a bustling swarm.

Interviewer, behind the camera’s lens: “Do you come up here often?”

Watson, leaning back on one elbow on the slope: “Not as often as I’d like – with shifts and overtime and all that. But . . . you know, even though I’m outdoors all the time, up there in the mountains, it’s not really peaceful. Even if I’m just going up to ski, it still feels like I’m on the job. Here is where I can be outside and just . . . be.”

Interviewer, softly: “Alone?”

A too-long pause follows, one we have now witnessed in Watson multiple times throughout the course of the series. He takes a long breath and scrunches one side of his mouth, biting the inside of his cheek.

Watson: “Sometimes, yeah.”

He suddenly smirks, then looks past the camera to the interviewer, also lounging in the grass. He gives her a cheeky grin.

Watson: “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

She chuckles warmly behind the lens. A fresh breeze blows across Watson’s clipped-on mic.

Watson, suddenly: “You know, Sam’s brother keeps reindeer back in these hills. Their old family farm – it’s what their dad used to do.”

Interviewer: “Really?”

Watson hums: “And Simon – there’s some old land from his family back around these parts too. Last I heard he wants to build a little hut and retire out here. Go up and climb in the mountains all day and then come home without even having to pass through town.”

Interviewer, chuckling: “You sound almost jealous.”

We expect Watson to smile back, but instead he stares briefly up at the clouds.

Watson, sighing and looking back down at the town: “There’s so . . . there’s so much history here, isn’t there? Generations of families living here off the mountain, surviving on it, dying on it. The other guys at the base . . . I guess I’m sort of the outsider.”

Interviewer: “Because you are not from the Alps?”

Watson: “That, yeah. But, I just don’t have that history, I guess. I was in the army for so long, following them from place to place. This here is the longest I’ve ever lived anywhere – by a lot.”

Interviewer, cautiously: “And . . . why did you leave the army?”

This pause is even longer than the last. Watson bends one leg and reaches down to rub at his thigh with his left hand. Suddenly, blindingly, we are aware that Watson’s ring finger is empty – in stark contrast to the wedding rings worn by the majority of the other older guys on the team. 

Interviewer, in a rush: “You do not have to answer, yeah? Anything we ask, you know, it is just one question –”

Watson: “No, no. . . I mean, I appreciate it, but, it’s not really that.” He waits, then licks his lips: “I was just thinking that . . . you know, I barely thought about the army at all for all these years – it rarely even crosses my mind. Such a huge part of my life just gone from my thoughts since I’ve been living here, doing this work. And now you lot show up, and it’s all you can bloody talk about.”

He flashes a grin at the camera and interviewer, then jokingly rolls his eyes.

Interviewer: “What can we say? You have a fascinating past.”

The smile slowly fades from Watson’s lips, and he shrugs his shoulders, glancing down at his crossed ankles.

He doesn’t answer the question.

For another moment, there is silence. It feels unnatural, almost, contrasted to the blare of the alarm from back at the base – the whirring of the helicopter, the voices yelled through radios, the hiss of the ice and wind, the constant noise.

Hidden in the grass, a tiny bird starts to chirp.

Interviewer, leaning forward in the grass until the camera glimpses the tips of her fingers: “What you said before, that you are the outsider. It does not appear that way at all. Not to us. And we have been here for almost five weeks with you all.”

Watson half-grins and flashes her a look of appreciation, then scratches at the long stubble across his jaw.

Watson, still smirking: “I’m glad I don’t present the pathetic picture of the lost Englishmen to you all.”

Interviewer: “Ah, but you would not be the lost Englishman, would you? There is still Sherlock Holmes.” She laughs through her nose: “Whatever . . . comfort that brings you.”

Suddenly, breaking the silence, the sound of a helicopter roars above our heads. Watson looks up, shielding the sun from his eyes with his hand, and whispers under his breath.

Watson: “’S probably Robbie around this time of day . . . not Sam. . .”

The camera joins his gaze, watching the helicopter for a long minute until it finally disappears over the distant peaks. Somehow, even once the silence returns, it feels like a spell has been broken.

After another moment, Watson reaches over and puts his helmet and gloves in his lap. We prepare to leave, rising from the grass, but instead he sits frozen, looking down at the town.

Slowly, his hand reaches up to rub the back of his neck, just beneath his jacket collar. A flash of silver chain.

Interviewer: “John?”

He looks up at us and blinks, then rises to his feet. He adjusts the fingers of one of his gloves with his teeth.

Watson: “Sorry, yeah. Should go.”

Then, as we are about to make our way down the slope, he speaks again, so softly even the mic barely picks up his voice.

Watson: “Was just thinking that you were right, back there.” 

He clears his throat as his eyes quickly scan towards the majestic peak.

Watson, quietly: “There is still Sherlock Holmes. . .”

Immediately, without warning, the camera cuts to black. We gradually hear the muffled sounds of frantic voices fading in, the distant barking of a dog. The hiss of wind.

Then, in a blinding cut, we are instantly dropped back into the middle of the terrifying scene from before. 

The camera on the snow pans wildly to the left to see Watson sprinting towards the chaos through a wall of white, tripping on the slick ice. He screams Holmes’ first name from where he halts his steps on the edge of the jagged pit, hands on his knees, then he immediately whirls around, bends over, and dry heaves over the snow, coughing madly to try and catch his breath. 

The camera catches a brief frown of surprise from Simon before his face returns to terrified but focused energy.

Behind him, Dom tries to regain his own calm, staring down at the pit of snow with wide-open eyes. Elsa paws at the jagged snow and starts to cry.

Simon reaches out for Watson’s arm, and though his voice shakes, he is all business.

Simon: “He was about thirty metres down when it caved in. We had the drills in place to bring him back up with the patient, but the tripod got sucked down –”

Watson: “God I fucking told him to wait! I fucking told him –”

Simon: “He had signs of life. Patient was verbalizing.”

They both pause, Simon holding Watson by the shoulders. Watson’s knees look ready to buckle.

Simon, giving him a hard shake: “He had signs of life. We . . . I made the decision to lower him deeper. I did it. It was me.”

Watson looks like he is going to keep yelling, that or fall to his knees, but instead he immediately puts his hand on Simon’s shoulder and shakes his head.

Watson: “It wasn’t you. This is an accident. Not you.”

Simon covers Watson’s hand with his own, then nods once. The conversation is finished. 

Dom, pointing over our shoulders: “Gerold’s letting Patrick drop off after all!”

We zoom around just in time to watch Gerold’s helicopter descend as close as it can go to the uneven ground, even battling through mist and the storming fog.

Gerold’s voice, through the radio in German: “Fuck this storm. I leave Patrick with you – there’s a concussion call I need to go back for near the lifts.”

Simon, into the radio: “Thank you, Gerold. Thank you.”

Gerold, solemnly: “Get him out, team.”

Simon: “We will. I promise, we will.”

When the helicopter is just ten feet away from the snow, Patrick leaps out of the back with a giant pack strapped to his back and free falls onto the ice, dropping into a roll as he hits the ground.

We watch Patrick sprint towards us as the helicopter soars back up into the storming sky.

Watson, panting into his headset with a ragged voice: “Greg! Greg are you there?”

Greg’s voice: “John!”

Watson, clutching at the mic in his helmet: “Greg, Greg you have to go get . . . he isn’t . . . we need –"

Greg’s voice, firmly: “I am going back for everyone else at the base. We’ll bring every shovel and pulley. You all work on locating.”

Cut to Greg in the helicopter from where he’s been waiting down below. He soars back into the air, then flies as fast as he can. His hands competently grip at the controls, so hard we can see the whites of his knuckles.

Watson’s voice, through the headset: “Please . . . please hurry. Greg, please.”

His voice breaks on the last word.

Greg soars the helicopter into a dramatic turn as he races back to the base. He cups the microphone of his headset with his hand as he speaks.

Greg: “We are coming. We’ll get them out. John, I am coming.”

Interviewer’s voice: “How did you feel in that moment, as you were flying?”

Cut to Greg back at the base, leaning hard against the side of one of the helicopters. His short brown hair is drenched with sweat, and he rubs once over his face with his palms. We have never seen him so un-composed. We have zero clues, from the look on his face, what was the outcome of the mission.

Greg, looking out to the helipad: “It was the hardest I have ever flown. The most fast. I have never wished so badly to be back on the ice. To be digging with my bare hands.”

Interviewer: “And John – were you surprised by his initial reaction? He is normally so calm, from what we have seen.”

Greg’s face twists, and he lets out a shaky breath.

Greg: “I have never heard John Watson’s voice sound like that in my life. Not in almost nine years.”

He continues, in French: “I hope I never hear it again.”

Cut back to the snow. 

The scene before us is a controlled chaos, whipped by storming ice. Simon and Patrick both have long, flexible poles in their hands – ones which they are madly sticking down into the ice and snow over and over again to try and feel what’s underneath. 

Watson and Dom both have shovels in their grips, ones which Patrick had leaped down from the helicopter with on his back, and they balance precariously on the new edges of the crevasse as they quickly shovel out snow from within.

Despite the flurry of activity, it has only been three or four minutes since Patrick touched down on the ice. Elsa sprints in circles around them, nose down to the snow, trying and failing to pick up the new scent of where Holmes and the patient are trapped beneath. 

Simon, panting: “She is not picking up the scent at all. They might be too deep.”

Watson looks surprisingly calm and focused as he flings away snow with his shovel. He grunts with the effort each time he plunges it down into the ice.

Watson, to the beat of his shoveling: “Greg is coming. They will be here. He is coming back.”

Patrick grunts agreement as he continues to thrust the long rod down into the seemingly impenetrable snow.

Watson, again and under his breath: “Greg is coming.”

Interviewer’s voice: “And what happened then? Once you picked up Sam from the base?”

Cut back to Greg, still leaning against the chopper. He switches constantly back and forth between French and English, and we can feel the exhaustion dripping through his body.

Greg: “Well, it was like a usual mission, _non_? Robbie and Gerold and others were out on that other call – the concussion Gerold flew to, so Sam and I, we flew back to the pass with the extra supplies.”

Interviewer: “And what . . . what was on your mind as you flew back?”

Greg shakes his head and shrugs his shoulders, then lets out a strained laugh. 

Greg: “Honestly? I was thinking of Molly. Of my kids. My worst nightmare that one of them would ever be in that position, you know? And . . . I do not know Holmes’ family. I have never even heard him mention who they are, and I think he lives alone, but I was thinking of them. Which one of us would have to call. How we would tell them.”

Interviewer, gravely: “Did you feel it was that bad?”

Greg: “I tried not to. I am usually good at trying not to. But . . . yes. I felt it was that fucking bad.”

We are thrown beneath the helicopter again, watching from the small mounted camera as it lands once more on the treacherous ice of the pass. The blades start to slow to a chopping hum as Sam’s feet leap down onto the ice, followed by yet another giant pack full of shovels and supplies. After a few seconds, Greg’s feet join his. 

They both sprint, slipping on the slick snow, towards the distant red specks of the other men through the white haze of the storm.

Greg’s voice: “They had done a lot of work by the time we got there. So much work. I could not believe how much they had already dug.”

As Greg speaks to the interviewer, he and Sam arrive at the crevasse in the pass. What was once a sharp crack in the ice is now a gaping hole in the earth, surrounded by the shoveled-out snow. Without even exchanging any words, Sam unzips the bag at his feet and throws the extra shovels down to Simon and Patrick. Greg and Sam set up another tripod, extending it over the expanse of the new crevasse, and Sam stays up on the surface as Greg repels down into the pit after only a minute, carrying ropes to hook up the rest of the team as well.

And so, in the blink of an eye, five men are shoveling at the base of the deep pit, utterly silent except for the heaving breaths and the crunch of the metal through the snow. From the edges, Sam watches them closely, carefully monitoring the fragile surface of the ice – the carabiners and ropes. 

They know exactly what to do, and all we can do is wait.

We wonder if Holmes and the patient are still breathing below the ice.

With every shovel-full of snow they fling out of the pit, it becomes more and more horrifying how deep Holmes and the patient had fallen. 

Watson shovels twice as fast as them all, but he does not speak.

Then: a bark. 

Elsa suddenly points her head straight down into the pit, her tail rigid and outstretched, as she frantically barks her alert at the gaping hole. On the immediate next shovel from Simon, part of a bright red jumpsuit is revealed.

Simon: “Holmes! Holmes, we’ve got you, Holmes!”

The camera rushes to the edge to peer down as Simon frantically digs the snow away from Holmes’ body with his hands. In less than two seconds, Watson throws himself down at his side to join him. Greg, Dom, and Patrick continue to frantically shovel farther down in the pit, following Elsa’s barks, knowing they are now close to the patient as well. 

Watching their continued, terrifying focus, we become all-too-aware that the ice could all cave in again unless they keep the pit clear. That all of them could be buried. That a small avalanche could rush down the side of the pass over the unstable crevasse. 

The air is tense.

Gradually, through the chaos, and as the camera zooms in even closer to Simon and Watson kneeling in the snow, we realize that Watson is speaking under his breath, his voice being picked up by a mic clipped on and forgotten about earlier in the day. All of Holmes’ back has now been cleared from the ice, and Watson quickly shovels the snow away from his neck and helmet as carefully as he can while Simon works on freeing his legs, trapped even deeper beneath the snow.

Watson, panting for breath: “Sherlock, Sherlock I’m here. It’s me. Come on, Sherlock. I’m here. I’m here. . .”

Simon: “Dom! Stretcher!”

Dom drops his shovel and immediately calls up to Sam to help raise him back to the surface. We stay zoomed in on Watson’s hands brushing the last bits of snow away from Holmes’ face, cradling the back of his neck as best as he can below the helmet. Shockingly, the go-pro is still perfectly attached to the front.

Greg, in voice-over: “Normally, a situation like this, fifteen minutes and . . . you are done. The cold is too much, you have not enough oxygen to breathe. Your body melts the snow, you sink down deeper, and . . .that’s it.”

Watson leans down to examine the side of Holmes’ face which isn’t pressed down into the ice. He brushes strands of hair back from his forehead. Hazily, behind him, we see the flashing yellow of the stretcher as Simon and Dom maneuver it into place beside Holmes’ body. Watson’s fingertips are shaking as they touch Holmes’ cheek.

Watson, whispering: “Sherlock. Sherlock, please. . . please, it’s me –”

Greg, off-screen: “They had been down there for sixteen and one-half minutes.”

The team starts to gently but efficiently move Holmes’ body onto the stretcher, careful in case of a broken neck or back. It is painfully obvious that there is no sound coming from Holmes’ body – no words, no audile breathing, no rustling from his jumpsuit as he moves. The rest of the team barely speaks, gesturing in silent communication, almost afraid to make noise in case they miss a sound from Holmes.

Watson’s eyes don’t leave his face. 

They are just about to call to Sam to start hoisting the stretcher out of the crevasse when suddenly, miraculously, his grey eyes fly open. 

He lurches up off the stretcher and desperately coughs, gasping for air. Chunks of ice fall from his hair and face as he coughs up the melted snow from his throat and lungs. Behind him, grasping the stretcher, Watson quickly passes his forearm over his eyes. 

Simon, beaming: “Holmes! They you are, my friend! Old Holmes!”

From the surface, Sam lets out a wild cheer, then begins to manipulate the ropes with the drill to pull the stretcher back up to the surface. Attached to the stretcher by his harness, Watson follows.

Greg reaches up his hand to stabilize the stretcher from swinging too wide. His eyes look wet. Behind him, Dom and Patrick have already continued shoveling again to try to find the patient. Elsa still barks deeper into the crevasse.

Greg’s voice: “I . . . I may not look it in your footage. None of us may look it. But I have never felt more relief than when Sherlock Holmes opened his eyes. God. It was . . . But we had to keep working, to search for the patient, and the ice was unstable, we all knew. But . . . sorry for the language, but _putain_ the relief. You cannot imagine the relief. It was a miracle. You all witnessed a miracle on your film.”

The camera cuts back to a wide shot of the edge of the crevasse, where we kneel in the snow beside Sam operating the tripod and ropes. Suddenly, as if emerging from within the earth itself. Watson’s hand grasps the edge of the ice, and soon his upper body heaves itself over the edge, dragging the stretcher beside him.

Sam breathes a curse under his breath as he rushes forward to help Watson clear the edge and unclasp his ropes. Holmes’ eyes are closed, but his chest is still rising and falling with deep breaths.

Just before Watson moves to pull him away from the edge, without opening his eyes, Holmes licks his lips and tilts his head to call weakly down into the pit.

Holmes, in German: “I didn’t hear any more breathing from him. He was three metres below me, four to my left, to the north-east. He is there, but I think he’s gone.”

We hear someone from back inside the crevasse call up that they heard.

Sam, to Watson: “Get him away from the edge, yeah? I’ll handle getting them back up with the patient. You make sure he’s alright.”

Watson nods, and we back up to let him pass, dragging the stretcher with Holmes still strapped to it through the snow. We zoom in close on them, as if the rest of the pass doesn’t exist, as Watson begins to furiously check Holmes’ body for damage. His paramedic bag is spilled open at his side, and he reaches into it for marathon blankets to throw over Holmes body as it shakes with cold on the stretcher. 

Over Holmes’ right eye, a deep gash continues to bleed down the side of his face.

Watson: “Where does it hurt? Your neck? Can you feel all of your back? Are –”

Holmes: “John. . .”

Watson: “Where are you still numb? Focus on my face, follow my fingers –”

Holmes, still coughing: “John, I’m fine. I’m alright. Just a sprain in my thumb –”

Watson: “Let me check your pulse, let me hear your heart, are your extremities numb? Let me see your fingers, your hands –”

Holmes: “John, really, I’m fine. Please. I’m okay, I’m fine –"

Watson, desperately: “Who is the president?”

Holmes, with a frown in his slow voice: “Of which country? How the fuck should I know?”

Suddenly, Watson freezes, then the serious calm across his face breaks – a split-second flash of fear. A choked moan escapes his throat, and he leans forward to partially cover Holmes body with his own, keeping him warm. He holds his face in his hands.

Watson, choked: “God. . . Sherlock –”

Interviewer: “And when was the moment for you? When that horrible gut feeling finally went away?”

Cut jarringly back to Watson sitting in the hangar. We realize it is a continuation from the interview before, where Watson explained how he followed his gut feeling from the army on the way to the pass in the helicopter with Gerold.

He still hunches over with his elbows on his knees. Every few seconds, he glances to the side out to the helipad, quickly scanning the skies as if waiting for a helicopter to come into view and land.

Watson, sighing, in a tired voice: “Honestly? It still hasn’t gone away. It just started to ease. It was . . . Christ, it was that first time he spoke. Really . . . said something. Right before your camera went away – they had found the patient by then. But anyway, that was the first time I thought that . . . that, yeah. We had been successful getting him out. He was, well, he was going to be ok. My – our colleague. We had gotten him out. He was alive.”

Interviewer: “And what happened then?”

Watson, still looking over his shoulder at the skies: “I, uh. . . well, I made sure Holmes was stable. Checked him out for any injuries, treated that cut on his face. I’m not sure exactly what went on in the pit, but. . . they were pulling out the patient on the second stretcher by then. I heard Sam’s tone of voice. That’s how I knew the poor guy hadn’t made it.”

Interviewer: “He was already deceased?”

Watson: “Well, no, I guess that’s why I went with him in the chopper back, since I’m the most senior paramedic. There was still . . . a chance, right? I tried to resus him the whole flight back. Never seen Greg fly so fast. But. . . by then. . . yeah. I called time of death before we even got to the base. Well, I guess you saw it. Just happened ten minutes a--”

The sound of a distant helicopter interrupts his words. He freezes, mouth-open, and looks over his shoulder. The red chopper carrying Holmes and the other half of the rescue team is on its way back, flown by Robbie who’d come to get them after Greg tried to fly Watson and the patient to the hospital at Visp.

Watson immediately rises to his feet, both the interview and his microphone forgotten. He keeps his back to the camera, spine completely straight.

Watson, distractedly: “Sorry, I have to . . . I have to go see –”

He takes two steps towards the open doors of the hangar as the helicopter starts to land. His left hand twitches. The landing skids settle on the helipad.

Fade to black.

Static flashes on the screen, followed by muffled sound. 

Slowly, the image through the lens starts to clear, and we realize that we are staring straight up at Watson’s face. He looks down, almost straight at the camera, framed by the sight of a now-clear blue sky.

It is the go-pro, still miraculously strapped to Holmes’ helmet. It’s turned back on.

Watson glances up to the edge of the pit, where the camera has just left to follow the recovery effort of the patient they just found, then he looks back down. 

And there, right before our eyes, all of the focus on his face from the rest of the mission completely disappears. He breaks, reaching down to cup Holmes’ cheek. His eyes grow wet, and he slowly shakes his head.

Watson, in a wet whisper: “Goddammit.”

A pale hand slowly reaches up from the ground, moving around the marathon blanket. It is Holmes, lifting his fingers to touch the hollow of Watson’s throat. A flash of chain is visible, clinging to his collarbone through the open collar of his uniform.

Holmes, weakly and out of frame: “You wear this at work?”

Watson sniffs hard, his lips shake, and he holds Holmes’ hand in both of his, staring straight down past the go-pro at his face. His eyes shine fiercely, reflecting the light of the snow, and his chin wrinkles under the weight of holding in the gasping sounds in his throat.

Watson, trying to smile: “Of course I fucking wear this at work.”

Holmes, in a voice so tired and soft it doesn’t even sound like him: “I’m surprised it hasn’t fallen off. Told you you should have come with me for a tattoo instead.”

Watson, trying to smile: “Can’t get that tattoo until you do CPR on me, though, can I?”

Holmes: “Hmm, don’t give me any ideas.”

Watson: “Your CPR would kill me quicker than anything else.”

Holmes, softly laughing: “True. I doubt the shop would tattoo the chest of a corpse.”

Watson smiles, huffs part of a laugh, then his face breaks again. He reaches down with his arm, and based on the angle, it appears he’s placed his hand over the center of Holmes’ chest. A tear falls down his cheek and off the tip of his nose. It splatters in the corner of the go-pro lens.

Watson, trying to hold it back: “I thought . . . Christ, I thought –”

He stops speaking mid-word, and swallows a moan instead. He gazes back up once more to the crevasse, scanning what’s going on with the team. Behind us, we can hear the sounds of the team heaving the stretcher with the patient over the edge, Sam controlling the ropes.

When Watson looks back down, he slowly moves his hand off Holmes’ chest. Holmes’ finger reaches up and flicks away the next tear falling down Watson’s cheek.

Holmes, quietly: “I know. I . . . I thought so, too.”

Watson gives a gruff nod. We distantly hear one of the other guys calling his name. He quickly clears his throat and sniffs away the wetness in his voice.

Watson, loudly: “He’s stable! Let me finish patching up the cut on his face, then I’ll be there.”

Someone: “We need resus now! It’s either you or Patrick!”

Holmes: “You go. They need you. I’m fine.”

Watson looks back down, straight at the lens. His eyes shine a fierce blue against the red rimmed around his lashes. He wipes his forearm across his face, then nods again.

Watson, in a whisper: “When we get back home.”

Holmes, reaching up briefly to touch Watson’s arm: “When we get back home.”

Watson takes one more second to pull himself together, then leaps to his feet and dashes away. The go-pro continues staring up at the wide-open sky, now cleared from the storm. We hear Holmes’ controlled breathing echo in the camera, the soft crunch as he shifts himself on the stretcher. 

As he lies there, listening to the sounds of the rescue behind him, it feels as if our view of the empty sky is a reminder of how close he’s come to death. The grim reality sinks in, as if the sky itself is crushing down on the lens.

Holmes whispers, as his breath shakes: “God, fuck. . .”

The roar of Greg’s helicopter cuts off his words. He turns his head, swooping the go-pro with him, just in time to see Watson leap up into the back of the helicopter after the stretcher. He immediately begins CPR as Dom reaches out to slam the helicopter door closed. He taps on the inside of the window to signal Greg, and they soar straight up into the air, leaving the ground in a swirl of snow and cloud.

Holmes, whispering to himself: “See you at home. . .”

Behind us: “Holmes, God, Holmes you are alright?”

The go-pro gazes for one more moment at the rising helicopter before swooping back to see Simon crouching by him in the snow.

Simon: “God, good fuck, we all thought –”

Holmes, slow but sharp: “That I would rise from the dead and haunt you for the rest of your lives? You’re correct. You dodged a bullet. Now get me off this blasted freezing piece of ice and back to the base. And there’d better be good quality tea.”

Simon, laughing: “Well, no brain damage clearly. Watson checked you out?”

Holmes: “Yes. I’m fine. Obviously, since he dashed off to go play resuscitation hero and left me here in the snow.”

Simon shakes his head, then reaches down to pat Holmes on the arm.

Simon, in a surprisingly gentle voice: “Robbie is ten minutes away. He’ll get us home.”

Holmes, softly: “Thank you.”

Simon blinks hard a few times, composing himself, then gives a small, wry smile. 

Simon: “Well, like you said, I would not want to be haunted. You would make a hell of a ghost.”

We hear Holmes chuckle in response.

Soft violins gradually swell as we cut to a timelapse of the sun setting behind the Matterhorn peak. It bleeds orange and crimson into the clear sky, tinged with ribbons of pink, before smearing the warmth of the sunset down the pristine white slopes. A few early stars start to come awake and twinkle.

The music continues to pulse and hum in a soothing melody as we watch Holmes lying on the stretcher in the back of the chopper. It is bizarre, seeing one of the team suddenly lying where we have by now seen tens of patients. Simon sits behind him with one arm resting across Holmes’ chest over the blanket to stabilize the stretcher. Holmes doesn’t say anything or push it away. He’s fast asleep. Beside him, Elsa curls up with her nose resting on his shoulder.

Just once, it looks like Simon rubs his thumb over his slowly breathing chest.

Gerold’s voice, over a radio: “Robbie, how is he? What happened?”

Robbie looks quickly over his shoulder at Holmes sleeping in the back. He shares a brief, silent look with Simon, Patrick, and Sam before answering back into his headset.

Robbie, in German: “Holmes is alright, he’s sleeping. Looks like the bastard only got a cut on his face for the whole ordeal. Watson checked him out.”

Gerold, sighing in relief: “Thank God. Are you bringing him to Visp?”

Robbie: “He’s been alert. Patrick wants to let him rest at the base. He really seems okay.”

Gerold: “Copy. We’ll meet you back. He’s going to be insufferable for surviving this with just a scratch, eh?”

Robbie, smirking: “Of course.”

Gerold dramatically groans, then pauses: “And the patient?”

Robbie hums: “Not looking good. Greg’s got Watson trying to resus on the way to Visp.”

Gerold: “Well, if I had to get CPR by anyone, I would choose John Watson.”

Robbie chuckles: “You’re lucky Watson doesn’t have a wife for me to rat you out to.”

Gerold: “Ass. Take care of Holmes. Fly safe. Over.”

The music swells one last time as we watch out the helicopter windows. Lighter than air, we cut gracefully through the sunset sky over the peaks.

Cut immediately back to the outline of Watson standing stock still at the doors of the hangar. Never before have we ever seen him hold himself in a way that looks so military. The helicopter softly lands on the helipad, and two of the mechanics step forward to confer with Robbie about the flight. 

The back door slides open.

Watson remains frozen as Patrick then Sam both climb out of the chopper. His hand twitches once more as Simon steps out. Then, Simon reaches back in with his hand, and another hand reaches out to grab his for support. Two legs clad in a bright red jumpsuit step down, a torso wrapped in a silver blanket, a head of wild curls.

Watson breathes out a sound like a moan. The interview is entirely forgotten.

Immediately, their eyes meet.

The others all walk into the hangar, greeted by Greg, Dom, and other members of the team. Everyone congratulates Holmes as he slowly walks past, reaching out to gently pat his back, telling him in soft voices that they’re glad he’s alright. 

Eventually, after long seconds, only Watson and Holmes remain out on the asphalt. They stand a few feet away as the rest of the team starts to move back into the offices and kitchen of the hangar.

Simon’s voice, from out of frame: “Holmes, come on! I owe you some tea!”

Holmes smiles, still wrapped in his blanket, and Watson doesn’t turn his head as he calls back.

Watson: “Let me finish patching up this cut on his face! We’ll join you!”

There’s an unintelligible yell of affirmation back, then no more sound.

Holmes raises his eyebrows in a silent question. Watson shakes his head.

Watson: “He didn’t make it. Called time of death here – didn’t even make it to Visp.”

Holmes nods solemnly. They share another look, then Watson tilts his head to the side. Holmes mimics.

The camera tracks them as they walk, panning left until they slip down a small hallway into one of the side paramedic rooms, leaving everyone else behind.

Interviewer, behind us to the other cameraman: “We can get a quick interview with Greg Lestrade now, yes? Before the whole team is reunited. We’ll film them having tea.”

The camera swoops around to see Greg being handed a mic. He leans back against the door of a chopper, still visibly exhausted and a bit shaken from the events of the day. He runs a hand through his sweat-soaked hair. The interviewer takes her seat, along with the second cameraman setting up beside her.

Suddenly, we hear the odd, muffled sound of a sob. Someone is crying.

A choked voice, whispering: “What would I do? God, what would I do. . .”

We recognize that voice. It is Watson’s

His mic is still turned on.

Instantly, our camera turns to follow the path Holmes and Watson had taken down the side hall. We hear Greg’s interview distantly begin far behind us.

Holmes, fiercely: “It wouldn’t happen. You’ve never let it happen. You wouldn’t let that happen.”

More stifled crying, the sound of a gasping wet breath.

Watson: “I . . . I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t save you. I just . . . I just screamed and stood there –”

Holmes, also affected: “Shh, John. You dug me out. You were there. I heard you through the ice. You were there. . .”

The camera pans through the doorways into the rope storage, the mechanics’ supplies, and another hallway before finally peeking through the doorway of the paramedics’ room. 

There, nearly hidden behind a shelf of supplies, Watson stands with his face buried in Holmes’ chest. Holmes grips him tightly, holding him close, and his tired head rests on top of Watson’s own. They are unaware of the camera.

Both of them are breathing heavily, sniffing hard.

Watson: “This is why. The . . . what we do. The way we are. This was why. I couldn’t . . . I couldn’t do anything, all I could think was . . . that you were. . . that you couldn’t breathe –”

Holmes, in a wet voice: “I heard you. Nobody else could have . . . John, I heard you. I knew you were there.”

Watson: “In the . . . in the helicopter. All I could think about was you. I couldn’t . . . what if he died because I was distracted? Because I couldn’t focus, I was too –”

Holmes grasps the back of Watson’s head and tilts it to gaze down into his eyes. His face looks pained.

Holmes: “Nobody died because of you. John, you saved me. There was nothing else you could have done for him. Do you hear me?”

Watson nods, then wraps his arms around his waist and holds on. Somehow, both of them look smaller, dwarfed by the body of the other.

Suddenly, without warning, the scene cuts to Greg still leaning against the chopper. He is nearly finished giving his interview from before, and stares now looking out at the mountain, remembering the rescue.

Interviewer: “You said on the way there you wish you had John. Why was that?”

Greg sighs. An odd smile graces his lips before he rubs the back of his neck.

Greg: “Look, I . . . I do not know what happened with him. That moment when it collapsed, when he called me. It was how you said – he was not in control. But, you have to understand, normally . . . you want somebody who is keeping their head? Who knows what to do? Who is calm? You want John Watson.”

Cut back to Watson with Holmes in the supply room. Holmes runs his fingers through Watson’s hair. It’s clear that Watson is holding up most of Holmes’ weight against his chest. They lean against each other, exhausted, their uniforms stained with drying snow, sweat, and flecks of blood.

Neither of them say a word.

Greg’s voice: “You know, we . . . we all, at some point or another, you have a mission and, at the end of it, you break. You just . . . you cannot hold it in. The adrenaline, and the fear, and the worry – for yourself, for your teammates, for the patient, it all spills out, yes? You need to take the day off. Go home.”

Slowly, gradually, Holmes and Watson calm their breathing. The desperate, frantic wet breaths from before are gone. Watson rubs his palm up Holmes’ spine. The touch is startlingly intimate.

Greg, in voice-over: “The only person here I’ve never seen do that is John. I mean, even today, even later when we were in the chopper with the patient, when he didn’t make it, after we landed here, he didn’t break. He just . . . he holds it together. I mean, you saw it, _non_? Did his interview with you right as the rain, as they say. Didn’t even need to take a moment to recover, like me. And he was the one doing the CPR the whole way.”

We watch Watson pull back and gaze up, and Holmes gently cups his cheek. He runs his thumb across the stubble. The camera half-hides behind the doorway wall.

Greg: “Maybe it is the military training. His personality. Whatever it is. But, you do not know what will happen? You need someone to keep their head? You want John Watson there.”

Cut quickly back to Greg. He sighs. All of a sudden, he looks sad.

Greg: “It . . . it makes me feel something, you know? I . . . I go home to Molly on those days. She – well, she holds me close, yes? I hug my kids. Those days when I break, they are there for me. And I . . . well, maybe I am thinking that . . . John does not have anyone at home, someone to be there when he breaks. I mean, this sounds silly, but, maybe he does not break because he knows he cannot do it.”

Cut back to the supply room. Holmes tilts up Watson’s head. Both of their eyes fall closed. Their noses touch.

Watson, whispering: “Sherlock. . .”

Greg’s voice: “It makes me sad. A man like John Watson, he deserves someone who can hold him together if he needs to break. Maybe it is not my business, but I wish for that for him.”

There is a grey exhaustion painted under Holmes’ eyes. He sighs after Watson whispers his name. Slowly, illuminated by the flickering fluorescent light of the storage room, they kiss. 

A small brush of lips, a shaky exhale straight into the forgotten mic, a near-pained, breathless moan. Watson rubs his hands up Holmes’ chest, pulling him closer, and the wet sounds of a rolling tongue echo over their breathing into the mic.

Holmes, panting: “I heard you, I heard you. . . I could hear you –”

Watson: “God, love. . .”

He grasps Holmes' jaw and deepens the kiss, sighing into his mouth.

Greg, off-screen: “ _Oui_ , maybe more than anything, for John Watson, I would wish that for him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just one chapter left to go! Thanks for joining me on this little side journey. I’m completely beyond thrilled that so many of you are as excited by our Matterhorn rescue men as I am! It’s been loads of fun to write this. 
> 
> Also, please enjoy the fact that I pulled a Sherlock Holmes, and after writing this entire chapter, went back to edit and realized that I had actually mixed up Greg and Gerold for about 3,000 words. OOPS.
> 
> Your comments are so, so, so appreciated <3 Thank you for leaving them!
> 
> Next time: What happens when the documentary crew lets John and Sherlock know their secret was revealed? And also, what the hell is going on?


	5. The Reveal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Those of you who have (blessedly) watched the show, you know I'm taking some pretty big liberties with the layout of this final episode. What can I say, except that's the beauty of fan fiction?
> 
> Enjoy the season finale!

White text appears on a black screen: One week later.

Water pours in a soothing stream, gurgling against ceramic.

We slowly fade in to the sight of steaming hot water being poured from a kettle over a bag of earl grey. The steam twists and coils into the air, and long fingers elegantly dip the tea bag three times to steep.

A splash of fresh, cool milk.

Half a spoonful of grainy sugar. Pause. A spoonful more.

Interviewer, gently: “Do you feel you have to thank them, in a way?”

A metal spoon tinkles against the side of a chipped Eastern Mountain Sports logo mug.

Hands slowly cup themselves around the mug. A long inhale.

Holmes’ voice, after a pause: “They aren’t expecting a thank you, so none is needed. It would be unnecessary.”

Zoom out to see Holmes leaning calmly against the hangar kitchen counter. He’s dressed in slacks and an incongruous forest green jumper, a color so vivid it makes it even more shocking that he’s standing upright, casually alive. That he is no longer buried in snow.

He holds the milky tea in his hands, steam still swirling into the air. We briefly follow his line of sight out the large double-window across the room, gazing out over the helipad where a few members of the team can be seen conferring with the mechanics, examining one of the chopper’s blades. 

Behind it all, the mountain beckons, piercing through the billowing clouds.

Interviewer: “Only. . .since the incident –”

Holmes: “You mean my near death caught on camera?”

Interviewer, continuing unphased: “Since the incident, you seem to be a little . . . well –”

Holmes: “More tolerable? Less of an insufferable arse?”

Interviewer: “Well, no. . . Not. . . I mean –"

Holmes, smirking: “I am, in fact, aware of my usual behavior. Contrary to popular belief, it is not as innate as breathing. My DNA does not compel me to be a dick – at least, not all the time.”

We hear a quick relieved breath of a chuckle from the interviewer, but when she doesn’t say anything more, Holmes blows into the mug before taking a long sip of tea.

Distantly, beyond the window, we hear Watson and Greg laughing while playing fetch with a barking Elsa across the helipad. Watson’s voice sounds bright.

Just when we think he will never answer, Holmes sets down his cup of tea and crosses his arms over his chest. There is a faint scar just above his eye, nearly invisible unless you knew where to look. He looks thin.

Holmes, slowly: “When you . . . when you are in a job like this, it doesn’t matter how good you are. I have a one-hundred-percent track record – finding bodies, finding people half-dead, finding people alive. Finding people who didn’t want to be found. I’ve found them all. But the mountain doesn’t care that I’m excellent. You can still . . .” 

He raises his hands briefly and flings them, wordlessly, as if that can somehow casually encapsulate the fact that he almost died trapped beneath the ice not ten days ago.

Interviewer, sly but understanding: “It could have been anyone. Even you.”

Holmes, chuckling through his nose: “Yes. Even me.”

Cut to a scene taking place in the same kitchen, from the same angle, only one week before. The entire team is seated in cozy company around the worn wooden table, everyone still in their stained jumpsuits except for Holmes, who’s changed into a thick jumper and sweats, one of the marathon blankets still wrapped around his shoulders.

They’re having the tea Simon promised, and we watch their soundless talking and easy laughter through the swelling violins of the background music. At one point, Dom puts down his mug and exaggeratedly mimics Holmes’ eyes bursting open on the stretcher, his intense coming-to-life. The rest of the table laughs, even Holmes over his tea, and Greg reaches up from beside him to wrap an arm around his shoulders.

To our surprise, he keeps it there for nearly a minute, and Holmes doesn’t shrug him off. If anything, he appears to lean into the support.

Interviewer, off-screen: “And now, how are you feeling?”

Across the table, Watson chuckles along with the group, even as he quickly passes the back of his hand over his eyes. His face still looks a bit pale and grey.

A moment later, his tired gaze follows the line of Greg’s arm across Holmes’ back. He appears to relax in his seat. To Watson’s left, Simon quickly glances at his profile, as if checking he’s alright, then Simon rips off his beanie and throws it at Holmes, to a fresh round of silent laughs.

Holmes’ voice, clearly smirking: “Why, how kind of you to ask, seven whole days later.”

Gerold rises to leave, but first reaches across the table to shake Holmes’ hand. He holds his fingers still for a few seconds, and doesn’t say anything, then the two of them share a serious nod before he grabs his bag and waves to leave.

Slowly, as a unit, the rest of the team stands up to follow him out. Their colleague is alive, and their shifts are over. It’s time to head home to prepare for tomorrow – a brand new day of rescues against danger.

Holmes stays seated at the table. After shooting a quick glance at the rest of the guys, Watson hangs back.

He takes the kettle from the stove and silently pours more hot water into Holmes’ cup. Holmes looks up to stare at Watson’s hands. They don’t speak.

Cut back to Holmes, leaning against the same kitchen counter, alone in the room.

Interviewer: “Well, you were not exactly available for an interview, no? You have been at home, recovering, and told ‘Greg’ you would ‘melt our film’ if we asked for permission to film you at your house. We do not even know your address.”

Holmes, tilting his head: “Well done, past me. I don’t even remember saying that, was too insufferably cloudy on the pain meds J— my doctor kept insisting I take.” 

He sighs dramatically, then flashes an unexpectedly warm look at the interviewer beyond the camera.

Holmes: “Fine, you’re forgiven, all that drivel. To answer your question, I feel as though I was hit by a truck on a motorway seven days ago, rather than trapped in some ice, and everyone has offered to make me my tea this week, endless babbling, but I’ve refused nearly all offers because none of them know how to make it properly and it tastes like a cup of fancy dirt water. And both Greg _and_ Gerold are being absolutely ridiculous not allowing me up in a chopper for the next week, so I’m trapped here on the miserable earth with you all organizing Simon’s pathetic excuse for a topographic map collection, and I’m officially declaring that anyone that dies who could have been found by me over these next two weeks is doomed. Out of my hands. Blame Gerold. And yesterday Elsa ‘found my scent’ a second time and proved herself ironically useful by chewing only _my_ uniform pieces in the locker room laundry. Simon looked _pleased_.”

A pause, then: “And yes, to answer the question I know you’ll ask again, I’m glad I survived.”

Interviewer, a bit overwhelmed: “And. . . and what of your other contracts? Any planned trips? Are you still taking calls?”

Holmes looks carefully straight ahead. His fingers twitch on the mug.

Holmes, slowly: “You could say my work outside of Zermatt has been put on a bit of a pause. An indefinite one, even.”

Interviewer, surprised: “You want to stay and work in Zermatt full time?”

Holmes just shrugs, then takes another sip of tea.

Interviewer: “I will be blunt and ask what possibly compelled you to do that? You’ve admitted you dislike –"

The alarm suddenly blares in the hangar, and the interviewer stops mid-word, now well-used to whomever she is interviewing running to the scene at the first sound of a call.

But Holmes doesn’t.

It looks wrong to watch Holmes not leap into action, not dash out of the room. He stands too-frozen against the counter, taking an overly calm sip of tea.

His eyes track outside the window, and we also watch Robbie, Patrick, then Watson jog towards the freshly washed helicopter. Watson’s helmet glints brightly in the flare from the sun and snow.

Holmes, softly, away from his mic as we look outside: “Someone suggested it, I suppose. Thought I’d give it a try.”

The helicopter swiftly levitates up into the clear sky, and one of the mechanics on the asphalt waves it off. We watch the now-familiar sight of the invisible blades gracefully gliding the chopper over the nestled hub of the town, soaring on a straight path towards the distant peaks, leaving the hangar far behind.

Behind us, we hear a door quietly shut. The camera swoops around to a now-empty kitchen. Holmes’ half-finished mug of tea rests on the counter, next to his carefully removed mic.

The wire is perfectly coiled. The sight of it feels oddly sad. The camera hovers on it for a moment before tracking back to the window, but the helicopter is out of sight.

Interviewer: “So, tell us, how has the last week been?”

Cut jarringly to Watson in the middle of the bustling, mid-day hangar. Behind him, a swarm of other team members hurry back and forth at their usual tasks. Music blasts through the hangar speakers, and one of the mechanics whistles a startlingly good harmony.

He leans back, taking a break from wrapping up slings and gauze. Sam mutters something unintelligible to him as he walks by, making Watson laugh and flip him the bird.

When he turns back to us, though, the smile quickly falls away.

Watson, clearing his throat: “Um, well, ‘s been a normal week, I guess. Yeah. Peak season, you know, so there’s . . . Christ, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five calls a day. Feels endless.”

Interviewer: “But good to be busy?”

Watson fiddles with a strip of gauze in his hand, twirling it aimlessly around his fingers. His beard is longer than we’ve ever seen it, and there are circles under his eyes.

Watson, nodding quickly: “Yeah, of course, yeah. Good to be busy. I mean, not good that people need help, obviously. Not that. But . . .” He shrugs: “I mean, I’ve said it, haven’t I? I like the chaos.”

He half-winks, but it falls flat. His knee bounces on the cement floor.

Interviewer, cautiously: “And, the rest of the team? Everyone is mostly recovered from last week? Sherlock Holmes?”

Watson’s knee bounces harder. He gets distracted watching one of the helicopters being pushed back into the hangar for maintenance checks. 

Watson, finally: “Ah, Holmes? Holmes is doing alright, I think. He’s . . . he seems to be recovered. Which is . . . well, I think they all told you guys, too. It’s a miracle. And the rest of the team – yeah. We’re all just . . . well, keeping on.”

Interviewer, a bit too brightly: “Well then, that is wonderful! So, it is business as usual again?”

For some reason, a sudden look of pain flashes across Watson’s face. We wait, frozen, as he looks out over the bustling hangar, at odds with the way he sits off to the side hunched over his chair. 

He rubs the back of his neck, and there is that familiar flash of silver chain.

Suddenly, he sits upright again, and starts to work with a renewed energy on organizing his supplies.

Watson, with a tense smile: “Right, yeah. Business as usual.”

The camera waits, but he says nothing more. 

We slowly pan away to five members of the team crowded around plans for a new helicopter laid out on a table. Holmes is among them. After a moment, he looks up from the papers straight at the camera, as if he knew exactly where it was positioned, then tracks over to Watson. He seems to understand the interview is over.

Subtly, for half of a second, a look of worry passes over his face. His brow frowns. He reaches into his pocket, pulls out his mobile, and appears to send a text without even looking. He shoves it back into his pocket before anyone’s noticed.

He misses a question from Simon, though, who ribs him with his elbow to make Holmes look back down at the plans. Holmes says something scathing enough to make Greg pick up a pencil and throw it as his chest.

Holmes grins, but it quickly fades.

Behind us: “Sorry, I . . . Well, this is over, yeah? I’m just going to . . .”

Cut back to Watson, still beside us, now rising from his seat to leave. He starts unclipping his mic with one hand, then holds up his mobile in the other as a silent excuse.

Interviewer: “Of course, John, yes. And thank you.”

We watch Watson walk away through the crowded hangar, dodging mechanic tool carts and helicopters with ease, until the red of his jacket is swallowed up from view.

Ten seconds later, Holmes suddenly walks into frame, following Watson’s path. He looks once over his shoulder before also disappearing down the halls. 

Beyond the hangar doors, the Matterhorn shines brilliantly in the sun, glorious and unmoving, completely unaffected by the peak-season chaos of the base. 

Almost immediately, a new alarm sounds. The team left in the hangar jumps quickly into action. Helmets are pulled on, and the chopper blades roar, and the familiar sound of voices through radios fills the hangar with a static buzz. Gerold hops into the pilot seat as Dom latches the rear door.

As the helicopter takes off for a new mission, leaving us behind, we see that it is exactly as Watson said.

It is business as usual.

 

\--

 

A bright red helicopter bursts into view from a wall of fog and cloud. The camera tracks it as it soars majestically through the sky, revealing a full view of the glittering Matterhorn peak just behind the tail.

The title card appears as the violins swell: “The Horn.”

Helicopter blades echo, mixed with a blaring siren.

It fades to black.

 

\--

 

We drop in to a breathtaking view of miles of fresh snow, shining blindingly in the bright sun. The slopes have been untouched by skis. 

A familiar red helicopter soars into view, crashing through the peaceful air. It sways gracefully along with the wind, reflecting the scene of the glittering mountains on its shiny sides.

The sky is cloudless and clear.

Sam’s voice, as we cut to the interior of the helicopter in the pilot seat, looking out over the controls and the view: “You know, sometimes, when the weather is clear, and the wind is smooth, flying over these mountains feels like the best job in the universe. It makes you feel like you are the most lucky bastard on earth.”

From the pilot seat, Sam grins as they execute a beautiful turn through a steep pass. Beside him, Watson adjusts his sunglasses and says something in response, while Patrick nods along in the back.

Interviewer, off-screen: “You looked like you were having fun.”

Sam, speaking over film of himself piloting the chopper to land near one of the ski lifts: “Of course it is fun! I get to fly helicopters in the most beautiful place on the earth, all of the days. I get to . . . I get to be around good people, hard working people, my team, you know? I get to play around in the snow.”

Cut to Sam sitting in the pilot seat back at the hangar for his interview. His eyes are bright as he gazes out through the windshield, imagining the endless snow-capped peaks.

Sam: “It is . . . it is a hell of a job. A hell of a life.”

Gerold’s voice, as Sam wistfully grins: “Ah, man, he said all that to you?”

Cut immediately to Gerold in his office, leaning back in his chair behind a desk littered with papers and two old cups of coffee. He crosses his arms over his chest and shakes his head, even as he grins.

Gerold: “Of course Sam would make it sound like a play place. He believes he is fifteen years old still, I think. You know he is only five years younger than me, yes? Bastard will never admit it. Doesn’t want to admit he is close in age to someone with greying hair.”

Cut back to the helicopter as it lands in a whirl of fresh snow. As the blades slow to a hum, Patrick leaps out the back, and Watson from the co-pilot seat. They carry the stretcher between them. We follow their heavy steps trudging through the thick snow, until we spot a person sprawled out on their side just ahead on the horizon, surrounded by anxious-looking skiers gripping their skis and poles in their gloved hands.

Somehow, even with the patient sprawled out in the snow, and the onlookers’ nervous faces, all of the danger from the disastrous mission in the crevasse has evaporated. It seems as if their missions could never go wrong. As if the mountain would never hurt them, and the weather will always stay clear, and the air will be smooth. 

It is hard to believe that not every patient the team rescues goes back home alive. 

Gerold, off-screen: “But I . . . I know what he means. Days like today, when the mountain calls to you, she looks so calm. So beautiful. You completely forget that people die on her slopes. That your job is dangerous. It’s just . . . it is as he said, eh? It’s just fun.”

Back in the snow, Watson and Patrick gently kneel by the patient. We briefly overhear snippets of their conversation with her and her family in broken French – the family all speak Spanish, and Watson and Patrick’s French skills are rusty. Watson gives up trying Spanish after the first bungled sentence, shaking his head at himself self-deprecatingly with a grin.

The patient appears to have badly sprained her wrist, but nothing more, and Patrick takes the lead while Watson stands off to the side, keeping the family calm.

Patrick, in voice-over: “The families, the loved ones – sometimes, they see the helicopter coming, they see the uniforms, and the stretcher, and then they start to panic. They think, this is really serious now. This is not just a sprained wrist. This is a rescue.”

Patrick wraps the woman’s arm in a splint, asking her about where they’re staying in Zermatt as he works. Behind them both, Watson says something which makes the group burst out in a relieved laugh. 

Patrick: “And, yes. As I have said, every call is serious. We are all aware of that, as the team. But the families? They do not need to be aware of that. They are trying to have answers, to make sure the person will be okay. That is why it is always good to have the person talking to them, yes? To say, ‘yes, we are trained, we are working on the patient.’ Because you cannot guarantee everything will be alright, but you can calm them.”

Cut to Patrick back in the hangar, casually leaning against one of the helicopters’ red sides. 

Patrick: “And Watson? He. . . oh, he would hate me for saying this, but you need someone to chit chat with the loved ones? To handle their fear? He is the best. He just . . . he puts people at ease.”

Patrick suddenly laughs, shaking his head, then goes on: “Watching him, it always makes me grateful that old Holmes does not join us for these smaller missions – that we only call him in for the emergencies. Because him? Talking to people? Trying to _calm_ them? From how Watson does it, it is night and day. Even Simon is better at it, and he would rather be talking to Elsa, or to his precious ropes.”

Cut away from Patrick, still chuckling, to Sam sitting in the pilot seat out in the snow, waiting for them to bring the patient back to the helicopter for transport. The co-pilot door is still thrown open from when Watson jumped out earlier, and Sam starts dramatically blowing into his bare hands.

Sam, into his head-set: “Good Christ it’s cold! John, stop charming the whole family and come close your damn door!”

Watson’s voice, muffled, as if he’s speaking behind his hand: “Shut your own fucking door. I’m actually working. You’re just sitting on your arse.”

Sam: “If I freeze to death here, how will you fly back? You cannot fly for shit. Whose number are you even trying to get? Everyone there is too young for you.”

Watson: “Har har. Think of me tonight when you’re lying alone in your cold bed.”

Sam: “Oh? And who have you got a date with? One of the local reindeers? A lost polar bear? A snow man?” 

There’s a brief pause, and we hear Watson clear his throat. Through the open helicopter door, we can see Patrick guiding the patient to her feet.

Finally, Watson chuckles, but his voice sounds odd – distracted.

Watson, coyly: “Ah, man, let me keep some of my secrets, at least.”

We stay on Sam rubbing his hands together for another moment before we jump ahead in time, with everyone back in the chopper, and Patrick holding the patient’s wrist steady as the helicopter sways in the mildly turbulent air. Watson gulps down some water while Sam casually flies them back to the base.

The blades roar in a comforting hum.

Greg’s voice, in French: “Those days? Like everyone just described? Ah, those are the days I wish I could have my kids with me in the helicopter. Or Molly by my side – to show them the beauty of it all. To share with them this place. You just . . . you want to share it with someone close to you. And of course, we have the team, our closest brothers, no? But, you want someone special with you, too. It is . . . it is almost romantic, soaring over the alps.”

We view the inside of the helicopter from a camera mounted at the top of the front windshield. Sam whistles a tune under his breath, then calmly communicates his coordinates back with the base. Beside him, Watson quickly pulls his mobile out of his uniform pocket and swipes open the screen. He looks down at it for a few seconds, shielded from view behind his thigh. A brief smile crosses his lips, more like a half-smirk, then he slides the phone back into his pocket. Nobody else in the helicopter has even noticed.

As they descend to the familiar helipad on the roof of the hospital at Visp, Watson gazes out the window with his chin in his hand. The curve of his spine looks tired.

Gerold, in voice-over as the helicopter lands: “But, even with the good days like today, I still keep my number one rule.”

Cut drastically back to a calm scene of Gerold at his kitchen table. He’s eating a home-cooked breakfast with his wife and two daughters. After checking his watch, he rises from his seat, folding his napkin by his plate. One by one, he moves around the table and leans down to kiss his daughters on the forehead.

Gerold: “And that rule is, I do not leave the house without kissing everyone goodbye. Without saying I love you. You just . . . it is hard to think about, but you never know. Look at what happened with Holmes, yes? And thank God he is alright. But that was . . . well, it was a miracle, yes? With this job, and this mountain, you just . . . you never know. You need to say I love you. To give the kiss goodbye.”

He kisses his wife on the lips, then the top of her head, before he scoops up his bag from the floor and zips up his puffy uniform jacket. His family watches the door shut behind him as he leaves.

Sam’s voice: “Oi, Watson! You drop your happy face back on the mountain?”

Cut back to the helicopter. Through the window, we see Patrick handing the patient off to the team of nurses and hospital staff. They share a few lines of friendly chit-chat, shivering against the cold.

Watson shakes his head as he leans back in his seat. He twirls his mobile in his hand.

Watson, clearly joking: “Just tired of dealing with you for six whole hours, is all.”

Sam, in German: “Aww, come on. At least I’m not Holmes, driving you mad! Send up a prayer for Robbie – he has to take Holmes with him for the planned avalanche drops near Hornli Hut today. It’s his first day back up in the air.”

Patrick interrupts by leaping back up into the helicopter – successful mission completed.

Watson, rubbing his thigh with a thin smile: “Yeah, at least you’re not Holmes.”

Cut quickly to another timelapse, this one hovering near the landscape of the mountain by Solvay Hut. We watch the waterfall of colors pour down the mountain sides, somehow nostalgic of the now-familiar sight. The clouds zoom across the sky like waving silk. The techno music peaks, then fades.

As we land back at the base, it feels like an epic adventure of a day is coming to a close. Everyone moves slowly, without any haste, and Watson pauses to look back at the Matterhorn peak as Sam and Patrick walk away.

Watson fiddles with the zipper of his uniform, and nearly runs into the camera when he turns to leave.

Interviewer, suddenly appearing: “John, do you mind if we step aside for a moment?”

Watson, confused: “For an interview? I thought –”

Interviewer: “I would really appreciate it, if you don’t mind. Just for a few moments. We’ve something to run by you.”

Watson frowns, glancing quickly at the hangar to scan what’s inside, then shrugs his shoulders and nods. We walk away, and he follows.

Cut immediately to the inside of one of the lesser-used offices. The shot feels oddly unproduced. The lighting has not been altered, and the background noise and odd echoes of the room haven’t been properly mixed for sound. 

Watson reaches gratefully for the small clip-on mic as he sits down in the offered seat. He sits directly across from the camera, facing us and the interviewer. The walls are bare.

He clasps his hands together after an awkward moment of silence, glancing briefly among the members of the small camera crew, before he leans his elbows on his knees and clears his throat.

Watson: “So. . .?”

Interviewer, carefully, as if she’s memorized what to say: “John, we – well, as you know, this is our last week filming with you all.”

Watson, smiling politely: “Of course. I think we’ll all be a bit sad to see you go.”

He scratches his growing-in beard along his jaw. One of the members of the crew tries to stifle a sneeze.

Interviewer, after hesitating: “I know you want to get home now, for the end of the day, so I will be as honest as possible with you, if that is alright?”

Watson sits back straight in his seat and folds his hands between his thighs. He bites the inside of one cheek, then rolls back his shoulders. He looks tense.

Watson: “Yeah. Okay.”

Interviewer, taking a deep breath: “There is some footage we have seen of you. Some footage which we all admit you may be upset that we have taken. And for that, we already apologize. We will start editing for the show immediately once we finish filming next week, and so we wanted to ask you . . . well, to explain to you what we have got. To ask for what you think.”

Watson, almost dangerously, but still appearing calm: “What is it? What footage?”

Interviewer: “I think it will be best if we show it to you.”

She reaches into frame and hands Watson an iPad, with footage clearly keyed up already on the screen. It appears to be an interior shot of the hangar. Watson frowns as he takes the iPad, looks up once more at the interviewer, then settles in his seat and presses play. He holds the iPad carefully in his hands, as if he isn’t used to working like that with technology. We can no longer see the screen.

Then, a voice, thin and raspy from the tiny speaker: “What would I do? God, what would I do. . .”

Immediately, Watson’s face crumples. His composure breaks, for only a second, and his hands tighten hard on the iPad before his face calms again. He looks up quickly at the interviewer with wet eyes, shocked, then back down at the footage.

We watch him watch the camera as it searches for him and Holmes through the hallways, as it finds them in the supply room, as Watson weeps, and Holmes cradles his head.

He doesn’t move.

Endless, eternal minutes seem to pass as he watches himself hold Holmes in the tiny room, as he hears his words from a few weeks ago, his anguish, Holmes’ reassurance. The camera half-hidden behind the doorway wall.

The interviewer shifts uncomfortably in her seat. We know what’s coming next.

We wait, frozen, as Watson watches the first seconds of the footage of their secret kiss. The sound of it echoes through the empty office – soft, yet unbearably loud.

Finally, the interviewer can no longer wait. She shatters the silence with her voice.

Interviewer, gently: “John?”

Watson watches the final few seconds of film before the camera quickly ducks away from the doorway and shuts off in the hall. He traces the outer edge of the iPad with his finger. It feels too silent in the office without the noise of the footage.

When he finally looks up, there is a shocking warmth in his eyes.

Watson, in a rough voice: “Have you . . . has he seen this? Does he know?”

Interviewer: “We approached him earlier today, before he left with Robbie for the detonations. We . . . well, before we could say anything, he said that he figured we had caught some ‘particularly incriminating pieces of film,’ and that he refused to say anything until we had spoken to you.” She pauses, then: “And also, he said to say ‘I told you so’.”

Watson laughs through his nose. Surprisingly, tension eases out of his body. His limbs relax. He holds the iPad gently in his lap.

Watson, casually: “You know, he and I got into the biggest row over this, back when Gerold first told us about you all and the filming. I told him he was being too ‘misery and gloom’ about it all. Too bloody suspicious of everyone all the time to just automatically assume something would go wrong. That you all would . . . well, you know.”

Interviewer: “Oh? And what did he say?”

Watson: “He said I was a naïve idiot, and that someone in a helicopter higher than the Matterhorn could read the emotions on my face if I was standing all the way back down on the ground.”

The interviewer laughs brightly, openly, and Watson joins in with warm eyes, as if they’re old friends. The atmosphere feels almost cozy, even in the stark white walls of the room.

Watson, leaning forward to hand the iPad back to a member of the crew: “You know, I . . . Well, secret’s out now, I suppose. Feels odd to say it, but, you know in sixteen years, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a video of us together? I mean, a few photographs we’ve taken, sure. But, I’ve never . . . I’ve never seen that. He and I . . .”

Interviewer: “Would you like to have it?”

Watson, looking down briefly at his hands: “Uh. . . Yeah, actually. Yes, I would.”

Subtly, gradually, a tension seeps back into the room. Watson leans over and stares down at the ground, twiddling his hands. The interviewer scoots her chair forward, scraping it harshly across the tile.

Just once, he rubs the back of his neck. We glimpse the chain.

Interviewer, finally, with thick emotion: “John, why?”

He tilts his head, as if he knew the question was coming. He sniffs hard, just once, and the fingers of his left hand clench. He runs his right hand over his wrist, soothing the muscle.

When he finally looks up, however, his eyes are clear.

Watson: “You know, just a few months ago, before you all came here, it was . . . it was so easy. I never even thought about it. We came here, and if Sherlock was working, we were. . . well, we were colleagues. We worked for the same team. We rescued people. We – we had a good laugh, even.”

Interviewer: “The bickering?”

Watson, smiling a bit: “Yeah, the bickering. Christ, if anything that made it all easier, you know? To have a way to be together here that wasn’t . . . well, what we really were. Are. And then we’d – we’d leave for the day, meet up back home, and we were just us again.”

Interviewer: “I think I begin to understand what you say – what you mean. Your colleague, Greg Lestrade, he said to us something similar regarding his wife.”

Watson hums in acknowledgement, then looks out the window. The camera stays on his face as he gazes at the outline of the peaks, the blinding white snow reflected in his eyes.

Watson, distantly: “The reason they all call us by our surnames, you know that’s just a joke, right? Started my first week here. Everyone said a British bloke sounded too posh to be called something plain like ‘John’ – everyone started calling me Watson. It just stuck. And then Sherlock came along, when he started working here more, and, same thing. Didn’t even matter that his first name is the fanciest thing on earth. It had to be Holmes.” He shrugs: “But then, at home. . . with him, I could be John. It just . . . I don’t know. It worked.”

Interviewer, solemnly: “Were you . . . are you afraid? Of how the team would react?”

Watson, after a pause: “You mean because we’re gay? No, no no. Not that. I mean, sure, there have been a few colleagues over the years where you wonder how they would. . . but, no. Never that. At least, not the main reason. These guys are . . . They’re family, yeah?”

He stops speaking for a long minute, and the interviewer waits. The room holds its breath.

Watson, running a hand through his hair, voice thick with emotion: “I mean, I mean you _saw_ it, right? You saw how I couldn’t . . . I can’t do my job, I can’t work with him if every time I look at him I see my . . . see my partner. The most important person in my life. No, even way back in the early days, when he didn’t spend near as much time working with Air Zermatt, we still. . . I needed. . . he needed to just be – be ‘old Holmes,’ or else I couldn’t stand watching him climb up into the helicopter every day. And it didn’t . . . it didn’t seem like anyone had to know, like they didn’t need to –”

Watson suddenly stops mid-word and shakes his head, running his hands over his face.

Watson: “You know what? Ever since you all showed up, it’s all . . . it hasn’t made as much sense to me anymore. Not like it used to. I’m probably just bungling this. He’d know far better what to say, how to explain it all, I think.”

Interviewer, gently: “Do you think he would do that?”

Watson: “If anyone could convince him, it’s me.”

Interviewer: “Here at the base? Shall we schedule a time, or --?”

Watson, casually: “Well, you’ve filmed everyone else at home, haven’t you?”

Interviewer, with warmth in her voice: “Why, yes. We have.”

Watson nods his silent answer, gives her a quiet smile, then clears his throat.

Distantly, through the walls, we hear some of the guys burst into a chorus of laughter back in the hangar. Watson takes a deep breath. He looks separated – alone.

Watson: “You’re probably waiting to ask me whether you can use the footage, right?”

Interviewer, cautiously: “You’re correct. . .”

Watson: “I’m guessing this isn’t all? That there’s more?”

Interviewer: “There are . . . a few small moments, here and there. Where people might wonder –”

Watson, chuckling and shaking his head: “God, he’s going to lord this over me for years. . .”

Interviewer: “And then, that day of his accident. Did you . . . were you aware that his go-pro was still turned on?”

Watson, a bit shocked: “After we got him out?”

Interviewer: “Yes. We have all of it. His voice, and your face. . .”

Watson swallows hard, and his body grows too still.

Watson, down at his hands: “I don’t . . . Honestly, I don’t think I could ever watch that. That bit.”

Interviewer, swiftly: “I understand.”

Watson runs his hands through his hair, stretching his neck, then rubs the side of his jaw.

We are still waiting for him to answer. Hoping.

Watson, finally: “Look, did he say anything to you about how he feels about all this? What he wants?”

Interviewer: “I believe his exact words were: ‘Do whatever John says. Don’t question him. Now get out of my hair so I can have a moment of peace’.”

Watson immediately breaks into a grin, laughing, and glances around at the crew behind the camera.

Watson: “Christ, sorry for that. You’re all saints for putting up with him, you know.”

An unknown deeper voice, possibly the cameraman, in German: “You know what? He sort of grew on us over the weeks. I like him.”

Watson, still smiling down at his hands: “Yeah, he has the tendency to do that.”

Approaching helicopter blades outside the window suddenly roar through the calm silence. Watson glances up, staring out the window, then tenses in his seat, as if he’s about to rise.

He glances at the interviewer as he reaches to take off his mic.

Interviewer, understanding his silent question: “That’s him coming back, isn’t it? Go on.”

Watson smiles, grateful, and hands her the mic.

Watson: “Well, tell you what, I’m never forgetting to take that bloody thing off ever again.”

He winks to a chorus of embarrassed chuckles from the crew, then moves towards the door. Just as he’s about to fling it open and leave, he looks back at the interviewer. The camera is entirely forgotten, and his voice without the mic sounds tinny and soft.

Watson, gently: “You know what? Use your film. I. . . yeah. It should be in there.”

Interviewer, clearly moved: “Thank you, John.”

He opens the door, pats it once with his hand as a goodbye, then disappears out into the hall. 

We rise from our seat and immediately move towards the window looking out over the helipad. The helicopter has landed now, and Robbie and Simon are climbing calmly out the front doors, still deep in discussion. Holmes gracefully drops down from the back and brushes imaginary dust from his uniform jacket.

We watch from above as Watson suddenly appears in the frame, walking out through the hangar door. Robbie and Simon wave at him, sharing the results of their mission, and Watson shares a few unheard words with them before they break off for the hangar, unzipping their uniform jumpsuit tops.

Watson stands ten feet away from Holmes. For a moment, they are both still. We have seen moments like this many times before.

Then, with head high, Watson walks towards him across the helipad. He opens his arms as he approaches, then pulls Holmes into his embrace. Slowly, surprised, Holmes eventually wraps his arms around Watson’s back. He looks confused. Watson presses his face into Holmes’ neck, seeming to whisper something into his ear, and Holmes nods understanding, closing his eyes, with only the Matterhorn peak in the background to witness this conversation. 

Holmes holds the back of Watson’s head, pulling him closer. His confusion is gone. It is different from the hug we witnessed back in the storage room weeks before. It is softer, somehow. Calmer.

Interviewer’s voice, in a whisper, even though they couldn’t possibly hear from down on the helipad: “You know? I am a bit surprised he was not angry – about the filming.”

Watson slowly pulls away from Holmes, reaching up to briefly cup his neck as they move apart. Neither of them glances warily back to the hangar. They just look at each other.

Cameraman: “I am not surprised. We have never seen them look like that before, eh? It is different now.”

Watson’s hand slowly traces down Holmes’ shoulder and arm as they start to walk away. Nobody appears to have seen them, but that also does not seem to matter. Holmes smiles at Watson, in a way we’ve never seen before, and they walk close enough that their shoulders brush. The odd strain we’ve seen in both of them the last few interviews seems to have vanished.

They look calm.

Interviewer, softly: “Hmm, yes. It is different now, I suspect.”

Gerold’s voice, as the camera fades out: “You know, our work here? It never ends. It is three hundred and sixty-five days a year. Twenty-four hours a day.”

We soar through a following montage of scenes in quick succession, catching up with various members of the team now that filming is wrapping up:

Robbie and Sam confer on the plans for the new helicopter design with engineers from England. 

Patrick prepares for a new incoming class of paramedic trainees.

Gerold offers Simon a position learning co-pilot training and certification. 

Greg brings Molly and his kids to the base for a visit, taking them up with Sam in a helicopter for a tour, and Simon teaches the kids to make Elsa shake hands and roll over. 

Gerold vaguely mentions plans for Holmes to work at Air Zermatt full time (“But don’t tell _him_ I said that!”). 

Watson and Patrick lead a specialized snow-rescue day training for visiting paramedics from Southern Germany. 

Simon and Robbie take the rest of the team to one of the local rock faces to practice belay climbing and bouldering for fun.

The sun sets, then rises again, then shines brilliantly beyond the Matterhorn peak. The town of Zermatt transitions from fairy lights twinkling in the darkness back to the light of day, reflected by the snow from the surrounding slopes. The ski lifts never cease.

Settle on a view of the outside of a small building of flats nestled on the outskirts of town. Ivy crawls up the sides, and little terraces are filled with small breakfast tables, potted plants, and extra stored snowboards and skis. 

Holmes’ voice, dramatically: “Don’t touch anything, move anything, smudge my maps, or otherwise leave a trace of your presence.”

Cut to the inside of one of these flats, a small but cozy living room connected to a homey kitchen. Sherlock Holmes stands in the corner by a huge window looking out over the mountains, arms over his chest and glaring straight at the camera. He’s wearing tailored trousers and a button-up white shirt with rolled-up sleeves, as if he’s just come home from work only minutes before.

Behind us, another voice cuts in calmly: “Touch whatever you want and sit wherever you want. He’s just trying to be intimidating.”

Turn to see Watson standing on the other side of the kitchen counter, casually preparing cups of tea and cutting thick slices of a sugar-dusted, golden-brown cake. He’s wearing a thin t-shirt, one we’ve seen him wear under his uniform jacket, and we see he’s wearing soft jeans with bare feet when he steps out from around the counter to carry over two of the cups of tea.

Watson: “He just doesn’t want you to think he’s too much of a softie now that you know he bakes cakes for fun.”

Holmes stomps his foot across the room and scoffs, but still carefully takes the cup of tea from Watson’s hands, letting their fingers brush. Watson hands the other cup to the interviewer off-screen, then takes the last one for himself. 

Before the interview can begin, Holmes immediately flings himself on the sofa beside Watson, grabs one of the plates of cake, eats the entire thing in three bites, then stares out the window with his arms over his chest once more.

Behind them, on the sitting room wall, a giant topographic map of the Alps spans the whole length of the room. Watson shakes his head, cuts his cake slice in half and moves half of it onto Holmes’ now-empty plate, then sits back and cradles his tea in his hands. He tucks one foot up underneath his other thigh.

Interviewer, over a mouthful of cake: “Well, finally! Here we are!”

Watson, politely: “Here we are. And thank you again, for –”

Holmes: “Well, get on with it. Ask us all the inane questions you’ve asked all the other married guys on the team when you film them with their families at home.”

Interviewer, startled: “You are married?”

Watson, a bit sheepish while Holmes looks down and eats more cake: “Well, no. Not, you know, on paper. But. . .”

Interviewer, understanding: “Sixteen years.”

Watson nods: “Yeah, sixteen years.”

Holmes’ eyes glance quickly to the side of Watson’s face. Watson bumps Holmes’ leg once with his knee.

Interviewer: “Alright, since you asked for it: how did you two meet?”

Holmes, immediately: “Well, put the pieces together, why don’t you? You know we were both in Afghanistan exactly sixteen years ago. What are the chances –”

Watson, putting his hand on Holmes’ knee: “I was there with the military, as you know. And Sherlock was there with a climbing team as their route finder –”

Holmes: “Lead mountaineer.”

Watson, rolling his eyes: “As their _lead mountaineer_. Anyway, the week before his team started the climb, they were staying in Kabul to prepare. I was there for a short week of leave at the same time, by coincidence. We, uh, well, I was in a bar, with some other soldier mates, you know, and Sherlock was. . . he was. . .”

Mid-sentence, he trails off. Holmes has gone still beside him. They share a brief, odd look, and the room fills with a subtle tension, before Holmes suddenly laughs. He shakes his head and looks out the window.

Holmes, warmly: “We ‘hooked up’ is what the perfectly respectable John Watson refuses to say.”

Interviewer, with a surprised laugh: “You had a one-night stand?”

Watson, turning pink as he mumbles: “Five-night stand, more like. . .”

Holmes, cutting in: “Details. Semantics. Anyway, as I was saying –”

Watson: “You weren’t even the one telling the story –”

Holmes: “As I was saying, I left after that week on the climb as planned, John went back to his unit at the conclusion of his leave, and the next thing I knew, I woke up in a field hospital six days later being told that I’d been in an avalanche, and that a military troop posted nearby had rescued me just in time, well, specifically, one member of that military troop had rescued me just in time, and that I was lucky to be alive.”

He looks at Watson, whose eyes have gone a bit glassy, staring off out the window. He speaks looking at Watson, camera forgotten.

Holmes, softly: “And then that specific soldier literally ran inside, with someone else’s IV bag of medicine in his hands, and asked if I was finally awake.”

Interviewer: “And you recognized him then? From Kabul?”

Holmes, looking at Watson’s face: “He’s not an easy man to forget.”

Interviewer, with dawning understanding: “The friend whose life you saved, the person you spoke of to us. . .?”

Watson, in a thin voice: “Yeah. It was him. Biggest fucking coincidence of my entire life. But, it was him.”

Interviewer, solemnly: “And the rest of your climbing team?”

Watson twists his mouth as Holmes shakes his head. Neither of them says anything more.

There is a heavy beat of silence, then Watson picks up his tea. He blows on the cooling liquid, but doesn’t take a sip.

Interviewer: “Do you think you would have met again, if not for that rescue?”

Watson: “I don’t know –”

Holmes, at the exact same time: “Yes.”

Watson looks over at him, surprised. Holmes looks suddenly embarrassed on the couch. He awkwardly shrugs his shoulders as he gazes out the window, away from everyone else.

Holmes, muttering: “I may have glanced through your wallet before you woke up one morning and memorized all of your personal information. . .”

Watson, holding back a laugh: “What, you were going to just . . . call me up when you got back from the summit?”

Holmes: “Don’t be ridiculous. You were in the middle of a warzone.” A pause, then: “I was just going to . . . drop by.”

Watson, with wide eyes: “To the warzone? You were just going to casually drop by a warzone?”

Holmes, defensive: “Well it wasn’t exactly just a ‘one-night stand’ now, was it?”

Watson, warmly after a small pause: “No. It wasn’t.”

There is a moment of silence as Holmes and Watson look at each other. We feel like we’re intruding. The interviewer shifts in her seat.

Watson, turning slowly back to the interviewer, clearing his throat: “Well, we’re both excellent secret-keepers, as you can see. He never told me that before.”

Holmes, chuckling: “Not that excellent. How long was it until your cameras caught him gazing at me with hearts in his eyes? Four seconds?”

Watson elbows him in the ribs and huffs. Holmes takes a calm sip of tea.

Cut drastically to Holmes and Watson in the back of the helicopter from episode two. Holmes pushes Watson back towards his seat, shushing him, and Watson looks out his own window, covering the small smile on his lips with his fist.

Interviewer’s voice: “It was more like four hours, actually. But, details. Semantics.”

Cut back to their flat. Watson is rising to clear away plates and start washing in the sink while Holmes smirks. Before Watson can walk away, Holmes leans over and picks up the last bite of Watson’s slice of cake with his fingers and steals it, tossing it into his mouth.

Watson, shaking his head: “You knew I was saving that to eat after I finished cleaning up, prat.”

Holmes, to Watson as he walks out of frame, unaffected by the insult: “You told them to use the footage, yes?”

Watson, talking from the kitchen: “Don’t know why you’re even asking. You already knew that’s how I would answer.”

Interviewer, to Holmes: “And you? How do you feel about that?”

Surprisingly, Holmes doesn’t immediately answer. He sits for a long moment, as the sounds of Watson washing up in the kitchen fill the small flat. He looks out at the mountain peaks, at the slowly setting late-summer sun. He runs his fingers once over the middle of his chest. Gazing out the window at the majestic landscape, it is hard to believe that we were flying in helicopters across those same mountains only earlier today. That the man before us almost died out there in the snow.

Then, Holmes, soft enough that Watson probably can’t hear: “John Watson risked everything to follow me here, do you see that? I was due to leave Afghanistan after I’d suitably recovered, to get on a plane back to London, and I asked him, point-blank, to follow me there. To come. Three months later, his tour was over, he didn’t sign his re-enlistment forms, and he was on my doorstep. When I wanted to move here to be closer to the mountains, he packed his bags. When I was gone every other week consulting with different climbing teams, with different rescue missions, he didn’t complain. We are not very open people, he and I. So, if John didn’t think it necessary the entire team knew our business, who was I to say otherwise? If he needed to keep that separate, for him to be successful with his work, with _our_ work, how could I argue?”

Interviewer, gently: “He hinted that perhaps that wasn’t working for him anymore, when we spoke with him last. When we showed him the footage. And before that, he looked a bit . . .”

Holmes, shaking his head, in a whisper: “He looked miserable. I know. Well, but, I didn’t know. I didn’t realize how it was affecting him to keep things the way they were. We’d been doing it for so long, I just . . . I didn’t _see_. . .”

Watson, suddenly, coming back into frame: “I didn’t realize either, love. Not until all this filming business. Wasn’t just you.”

Interviewer: “It was our filming that made you re-think? Not the accident?”

Watson, shrugging: “The accident certainly amplified it, but, yeah. I don’t know. I never felt like I was concealing anything before. . . then you lot started asking questions and filming my every move and lo and behold, didn’t feel so great after all.”

He settles on the couch, flashing the interviewer a small smile to show he isn’t actually upset, then dries the leftover water on his hands on his jeans. He takes something out from under his arm and leans forward to hand it to the interviewer: a picture frame. 

Watson: “There. That’s us that first night we met. Buddy of mine took it before we . . . er, before we left the bar. You get the idea.”

Holmes snickers. The interviewer gasps, then holds up the photo for the camera to see. We focus sharply on the image.

There, staring back at us, a sixteen-years-younger Watson and Holmes sit side by side on a bench in a crowded bar. The background is filled with other soldiers and ex-pats, dark and hazy in the dim lights, hidden by cigarette smoke. 

Watson’s hair is gold instead of silver, in a crisp military cut. The camo of his uniform clings to his body, his forearms tanned, but he isn’t wearing his uniform jacket, because that’s draped around Holmes’ shoulders instead. Holmes, young and bright, with short curls and pale skin in the camera flash, is mid-sentence animatedly arguing with whoever is taking the photo, clearly making a point as he illustrates something with his blurry hands. He leans across the table, littered with empty bottles of beer. Beside him, Watson rests with his chin in his palm, grinning, but staring with a focused gaze at Holmes’ bare neck.

Interviewer: “It’s remarkable to see this. Even to see the two of you here like this – in your home.”

We look back at them on the sofa. Watson is gazing down at the photo upside-down with a small grin on his face. He rubs the back of his neck. Holmes looks at him with a soft face. It is unclear if he knows we can see.

Interviewer: “Actually, can we ask, what is it that you keep around your neck? On the chain?”

Watson catches himself rubbing his fingers along the edge of the chain and laughs.

Holmes, smirking: “Told you that you would give yourself away.”

Watson, ignoring him, and suddenly more serious: “Actually, when . . . when I found him, when I got separated from the rest of my unit, there was fog rolling in. A terrible storm. I couldn’t see a thing. But I was still trying to search, right? I knew they had to be close – the climbers. It was our mission.”

He pauses, then looks hard at Holmes, seeming to watch the rise and fall of his chest. Holmes doesn’t fidget.

Watson, after a hard swallow: “There was . . . there was this tiny piece of rope, just a few inches, sticking up out of the snow. It was the only reason I even found him – he’d fallen on the other side of these rocks, but from where I was searching, it just looked like endless snow. It was . . . Christ, it was insane. What if I hadn’t seen it? What if it was buried? What if --”

Holmes, earnestly: “It wasn’t buried. And you did see it.”

Watson, shrugging: “Yeah, well. Anyway, I – I saved it. The end piece of that rope. Always thought he thought it was too ridiculously sentimental until he. . . Well, here. . .”

He pulls the chain out from beneath his t-shirt. On the end, within a small clear vial, lies an inch-long length of climbing rope, in a faded purple and red weave.

Interviewer, a bit emotional: “It is very meaningful, that. Such an important gift.” 

Watson, with wet eyes: “Yes.”

Interviewer, after a beat: “And you, can we ask –”

Holmes, immediately: “No, you may not.”

Watson dramatically rolls his eyes, then puts his hand up beside his mouth, pretending to whisper.

Watson: “His tattoo is my fingerprint on his chest –”

Holmes: “John!”

Watson: “So now you know he’s just as bloody soppy as the rest of us idiots.”

Holmes pushes Watson away on the couch and rises to his feet, arms crossed over his chest.

Holmes, as he storms away: “Honestly, John, it’s an invasion of privacy –”

Watson, laughing: “Invasion of privacy my arse. You just wanted them to think it was something cool –”

Holmes, from another room: “And it _is_ bloody cool, I’ll have you know –”

We slowly fade out of the sight of Watson laughing warmly on their sofa back to a view of the mountain from the hangar.

It is dawn. The sun is slowly rising to spill light over the tops of the peaks, illuminating them from shadow. Most of the town still sleeps. The air is a refreshing gold-grey.

Black text appears on the screen over our view of the snow-capped peaks and brightening sky: The final day.

The camera tracks down to the sight of a helicopter resting on the helipad, glowing brilliant red with the early rays of the sun. 

Around her, standing on the asphalt, the entire team is grouped in a huddle, conversing before the long day of work begins. It is everyone we’ve been following throughout the entire series, all of them dressed in their uniforms and jackets against the cold. 

Gerold leans casually against the chopper’s sides and gives the schedule for the day, instructions on who will be a part of which team. It is a typical staff meeting. We cannot hear what they’re saying; nobody is mic’d. Every once in a while, a small chuckle moves its way through the group.

They are clearly just about to break off for the day when Watson steps forward a bit into the group, with his hands in his pockets. Everyone turns to face him. It’s clear he’s asked for their attention.

Beside him, close but not touching, Holmes stands perfectly still.

We watch from a distance as Watson says something to the group – short and precise. After just a few sentences, he subtly reaches over and touches the back of Holmes’ elbow with his hand.

Faces drop in shock. Open mouths. Tentative smiles.

Greg turns away with his head in his hands and groans a French curse before turning back and enveloping Watson in his arms. Watson gratefully hugs him back. Holmes dodges the hug, but looks on with a small, proud grin. Gerold rubs the side of his face and laughs, shaking his head. Sam jokingly curses at the sky before putting a friendly arm around Robbie, who laughs and mutters what appears to be an exasperated joke at Watson. Simon smiles, just briefly, then looks down at his shoes, scuffing his feet.

Patrick reaches out and gently takes Holmes’ hand. They whisper a handful of words to each other amidst the happy chaos. It is somehow the most emotional reaction of them all.

Gerold’s voice, as the group continues to chat around Holmes and Watson, clearly asking for more of the story: “Those idiots . . . if anything would have happened, if old Holmes’ hadn’t made it the other week, how would I have known? What if something happened to Watson while Holmes was away? Why would I have thought to call?”

Cut to Gerold sitting in his office with his arms crossed on his desk. He leans forward, staring off to the side and biting down a grin.

Gerold: “God, what idiots . . .”

Cut to Sam, leaning back against a helicopter and laughing up at the ceiling. Robbie rolls his eyes beside him.

Sam, in German: “They had us fooled for years! For _years_! They probably think we are the worst of idiots! What a day!”

Robbie chuckles at Sam’s laughter and crosses his arms, mumbling a curse of disbelief in agreement.

Cut to Greg, standing outside alone on the helipad with his back to the peaks. His eyes are wide and wet.

Greg: “I don’t. . . I mean, I am angry. How could they . . .” He rubs a hand over his face: “ _Bon sang_. . . It is ridiculous! But, you know, I . . . I understand. I told it to you myself, did I not? About Molly? I would be lying to you if I say that I do not understand it all. The two of them. . .”

He shakes his head and looks out across the asphalt at the Matterhorn in the distance. His lips suddenly quiver.

Greg: “When Holmes was . . . when he was down there in the ice. Watson’s voice in the radio call to me. I cannot even . . . I cannot even think about it. Cannot imagine.”

Interviewer, softly: “Are you happy for them, despite the anger?”

Greg looks at her past the camera, then quickly blinks a tear out of his eye. He sniffs hard, then crosses his arms to shiver against the cold.

Greg, in a wet voice: “Sixteen years. Sixteen fucking years.”

He looks back at the mountain with an odd look of relief on his face. There is a warmth in his eyes, made clearer by the rays of the morning sun. 

Greg, whispering away from the camera: “John Watson . . .”

He stops speaking and swallows, then shrugs his shoulders. He lifts his hands in apology.

Greg: “I cannot say anything more, you know? Maybe not just now. It is a lot to take in. Good things to take in.”

Interviewer, also whispering: “Of course. You’ve said all --”

The alarm suddenly blares behind us. Greg immediately turns back to the hangar and wipes his arm across his face. His eyes glow with sparking adventure even as he still blinks away a tear.

Greg, grinning: “Ah, it is a good day for a rescue, _non_?”

He hands his mic back to the interviewer and jogs back to the hangar for his gear. We quickly follow. From inside the hangar, Patrick and Watson burst out with their paramedic bags in hand.

Watson, all business: “Possible back injury, male, late forties.”

Patrick nods understanding as he leaps into the back of the chopper. Greg is already ready to go in the pilot seat.

Watson is just about to climb into the co-pilot seat when we see Holmes step onto the helipad, watching Watson leave from where he’d been discussing his week’s schedule with Gerold. The other members of the team not called to this mission are all still milling around in the hangar, casually watching their colleagues take off in the helicopter for the first call of the day.

We watch Watson pause mid-step. He looks back at Holmes across the asphalt. Holmes nods his goodbye.

We think Watson will nod back, then step up into the helicopter, but instead an odd moment of indecision passes over his face.

He shakes his head, then quickly turns and runs back towards the entrance of the hangar. 

Interviewer’s voice: “How do you feel it went, telling the rest of the team?”

On the asphalt, Holmes takes two hesitant steps forward as Watson sprints towards him. He reaches out a hand.

Watson’s voice, off-screen: “It went . . . Well, if I’m honest, I thought they’d be a bit angry. They had every right to be, but they were . . .”

Watson grabs the back of Holmes’ neck, pulls him down, and gives him a quick kiss goodbye on his lips. It happens so fast, the rest of the team look like they can barely believe what they just witnessed. The hangar seems to freeze.

Watson’s voice, as the on-screen Watson turns and runs back to the waiting helicopter, as if nothing odd has just happened: “You know, I love this place. I’ve told you all this before. Zermatt, the mountain, the helicopters, the ice. And I . . . I love this team. More than any family I’ve ever known – even the army.”

Gerold gives a small, proud smile by Holmes’ side as Holmes watches Watson leap back up into the helicopter with bright eyes. Holmes touches the center of his chest, obviously, for anyone to see. The wind whips at his curls.

Cut to inside the helicopter, where Greg shoots Watson a quick, meaningful look before pulling up on the controls to soar them up into the sky. After a few seconds, Watson looks back down at the helipad through the window. Holmes is still visible, watching them leave.

Watson’s voice, roughly: “And I . . . Christ, I love him. I just want everyone to see that. To know – to know that he’s loved. I want them to finally know.”

Beneath his helmet and his sunglasses, Watson smiles down at Holmes through the window.

Cut back to the asphalt, where Holmes is still gazing up at the sky. He swallows hard, and he quickly licks his lips. There is a disbelieving smile hiding in the corner of his mouth.

He stares for another moment before crossing his arms and turning back to keep talking with Gerold. Gerold goes along.

Everyone else has already gone back to their duties – business as usual.

Holmes, in voice-over: “How do I think it went? What a ridiculous question. For the first time in sixteen years I got to kiss John Watson goodbye before he leapt in a helicopter for work. He kissed me goodbye. You saw it yourself. That’s how it went.”

Cut to the helicopter as Greg flies them effortlessly through the pass. The skies are clear, the mountain calls, and the patient awaits.

Greg, through his headset: “Alright John? Ready for work?”

Watson looks back up from gazing down through the window and adjusts his sunglasses. He stretches his arms in front of him, then leans side to side to crack his neck.

From the back, Patrick wordlessly reaches forward and places a firm grip on Watson's shoulder.

Watson, with a brimming smile behind his headset: “Let’s fly.”

Fade to black.

 

\--

 

The end credits roll as a series of the team’s full names in white text. They flash up on the screen for a few seconds one-by-one, each one accompanied by brief footage of that team member from one of the missions.

They soar helicopters through the clouds, leap through the air on winches, save patients’ lives in the snow, and sprint across the ice.

Holmes is lowered into a crevasse, and Watson pulls him back out.

We finish on a final view from the helipad of the Matterhorn in the distance. Before her, a gleaming helicopter awaits her turn to soar through the skies. All is calm and still.

Black text slowly appears on the screen, overlapping the image line by line:

Text: One month after filming concluded, John Watson and Sherlock Holmes were married in Simplon Pass, five hundred metres from the old crevasse site.

Text: The entire Air Zermatt team were in attendance. A separate rescue team from the Italian side of the Alps were flown in for the day to cover the base.

Text: Watson asked Greg to be his best man.

Screen fades to black.

Text: Holmes chose Simon.

Cut to a photo from the wedding day plastered across the screen: 

Everyone is dressed in their puffy jackets and snow pants. No one, not even Holmes, is wearing a suit. The ice is bright and blinding, and Elsa lies on her back in front of the group with her tongue hanging out.

Everyone is smiling and looking in odd directions beneath their sunglasses– it appears to be a candid shot. The group’s arms are all around each other in a rowdy embrace, and half the bodies are slightly blurred. In the center of the group, Watson and Holmes stand nearly chest to chest.

Watson, by chance, is looking straight at the camera.

Holmes is looking at Watson.

Fade again to black, where a final line of text appears on the screen, just as the end credits music rises to a peak to conclude the show.

Text: Simon wore a beanie.

End.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This
> 
> was
> 
> so
> 
> much
> 
> fun.
> 
> Seriously, I cannot BELIEVE how much excited squee this fic (and the show!) has gotten, and it is all thanks to all of you being wonderful humans! Thanks for joining me on this side-tracked rabbit-hole of a fic :) While I have no immediate plans to keep writing in this universe, I wouldn't put a sequel too far out of the question. I think I'll miss the Air Zermatt team too much to say goodbye for good.
> 
> Your comments are what make all the late nights and stolen-writing-hours and hard work worth it! Thank you SO much for all the kindness left on this fic so far. It's astounding in the absolute best way possible, and I'm deeply grateful.
> 
> Lastly, some MIND-BLOWING FANART - SERIOUSLY THANK YOU!
> 
> [Watercolor illustration of Ch. 4](https://khorazir.tumblr.com/post/176603139548/illustration-inspired-by/) by khorazir
> 
> [Photo manips of the whole team](https://sincewhendoyoucallme-john.tumblr.com/post/176467073500/88thparallel-sincewhendoyoucallme-john/) by 88thparallel
> 
> [Cover for "Whiteout"](http://discordantwords.tumblr.com/post/176354409846/this-just-sort-of-happened-current-fic/) by discordantwords

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Cover] Whiteout](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15636693) by [allsovacant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/allsovacant/pseuds/allsovacant)
  * [[Cover] Whiteout](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15642048) by [BakerSt233B](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BakerSt233B/pseuds/BakerSt233B)




End file.
